Right, this quite clearly needs some more work, it does not flow quite how I like it too yet. As ever I would love to her you'r feedback, don't be scared to leave it!
Somewhere, far away, out of sight to most, on the edge of a
barren wilderness, there is an old keep with a tower. Once it was strong and powerful
with a compliment of 350 men, defending the people of the kingdom from the
threat from the North. But there has been no threat for two hundred years. No
this keep has fallen into disrepair, but that is not a problem for the current
owner. For he only uses the tower, and not even all of that. He has no garrison
to protect him, no army to lead. No, all that the main building has become now
is a ruined pile of rubble and rotten wood, home only now to trees and
wildlife. A large old raven lives in the tallest of the trees, His tail feathers
now mostly white from age, his call a musty croak.
But it is not outside that the owner is, nor is it where you
re to dwell long. No. To find him you must go through the oaken door to the
keep, turn the heavy iron latch and push hard, the old wood is sodden with
water and stuck fast. Eventually however it opens with a deep screech and a
thud as it hits the wall behind, scaring a flock of birds into the air.
Now inside it is hard to see, but you take a few steps forward,
sunlight coming behind you and peeping through the chinks of the arrow slits.
Slowly your eyes grow accustomed to the faint light and you see the flagstone
floor you are walking across, and the room you are in; Modestly furnished,, you
see a rough bed with a straw matters, filthy and unmade, a hearth in the far
corner with cooking utensils and a table. Straw coveres the floor. You smell
damp and mildew. There is not much else of interest here, so you make your way
up the old and worn stone staircase that spirals round the side of the room to
the next floor.
Here it is far more interesting; there are shelves stacked
with books. These books cover the sides of the room top to bottom, and there
are myriad of free standing shelves in the rest of the room, creating a maze of
knowledge and wisdom. You start to wonder among the books and scrolls, picking
a few up as you go. Many are in strange and archaic languages, or written in
foreign alphabets or alien pictograms. In some you find beautiful
illustrations, of people and creatures in colourful inks and golden plate.
Eventually you find one in your own language;
“And
so we find as the Mystics say, the truth of the world shall be held among the stalks
of the tree of life! And, lo! We may call upon their wisdom by calling forth
the great high ones! “Araboth, Anarke, Tharabute, Damaal! Ascend!””
You close the book, with a start! Its words seeming to shift
as you read them, changing morphing...
A feeling of unease trikles up your spine like drips from an
iceicle. You place the book back on its shelf and make your way up to the next
floor, trying to steady yourself on the steps, as you find the stinking slime
has grow on them that could easily result in you breaking your neck on the
fall.
Finely you reach the room you came here for, the final room.
You see there are more books here. These tomes look older and more impressive
here. Heavy with weight, time and ancient knowledge. In the middle of the room
is a slanted reading table, made of dark old wood, high up from the floor, and
surrounded in candle light. There is a musty tome on the table, and hunched
over the text is a man, reading whatever forgotten lore lies therein. Time
seems to run slowly and sickly in this place. Like grease.
The man is old. Though it is more than age alone that gives
him his aura of age. In his high up chair, underneath the dusty and faded robes
of his kind, there is a body not only worn with time, but with loneliness, with
obsession. The wizened face that sticks out of the collar, underneath the
skullcap has an expression of bitterness to it, one almost of perpetual hatred.
The jagged hands that claw at the pages from heavy sleeves sport rough and
dirty nails.
His is a life few chose. Not because it was a life filled
with peril, or a life few have the skill to do. He was one who’s pulpous was to
collect and dispense knowledge and was one few had the will or inclination to pursue.
However, his hunger, his thirst for knowing all he could know had lead him to
take the robes of the Lore Master. This was no measly job of a librarian, no.
For although he had texts of mundanity and collections of statistics, he was
the guardian of the books of power. Those tomes that had powerful enchantments
within them. These books were not just parchment and ink They were dangerous.
His was the task of keeping them safe, so others may do them no harm, but also
so they may do no harm onto others. He was an exile and an outcast. He would begrudgingly
give information to those who sought it out, provided they had the appropriate
documents from the university.
This was a career that led to little interaction. The power
of so much amassed knowledge was not safe for people, he had been conditioned
to it by his master, as his had by his. He has, himself, had an apprentice for
a while; however, he died the first winter. He had to wait until the spring to
dig his grave; he did not have the strength to dig the frozen earth. The pale
body of the boy had been preserved the whole winter. Untouched by carrion or
pestilence. The Master cried like a child as he lowered the pale and beautiful
body of the boy into the shallow pit. A lifetime of tears all over a boy he barely
knew and would find it hard to care less for in life.
Once every two months, the university would send a cart of
supplies and any texts they had recovered to him. The manuscripts were always
in a lead chest, and the driver stayed no longer than neccery. And the
visitations of those seeking some knowledge from his vast collection was rare
and becoming more so. He had only one such visitor in the past year.
There was the occasional time he would think back to what
could have been. The lives he could have lived. Sometimes, late at night he
would think of love, and what it could mean to be in love.
Slowly, with a creaking of bones, he lifts a hand to the page
corner and turns it. He continues to read. To absorb the Lore. The only sound
his wheezing breath.
But you are no longer here, you were never here. It is just
him in this lonely ruined tower. And the books...
