Adventures In Questing - Part II

I awoke, pleased to discover the orc hadn’t taken any liberties with my body, yet displeased to discover I was bound to a rather expensive chair. I looked around, scanning my unfamiliar surroundings. Books. Hundreds of books lined the walls of the strange seven-walled room. The spines shouted names long forgotten, only a few recognizable to me. They were the names of the Heroes of the Quest Initiative. These must be their stories, I thought to myself. There are so many… the initiative has been around for less than a thousand years…I continued to look around the room, gawking at the flamboyant furniture that sat around. The knots that bound me were tight.

In front of me was a comically large ghostwood desk, which behind it sat a similarly large chair, lined with gold rivets and upholstered with bright red leather. To the left of the desk, against the only section of wall not taken up by shelving sat a table with what looked like, at least in this low light, a severed head placed upon it. Looking up, I noticed an extremely ornate chandelier seeming hanging from nowhere. There was no ceiling. Just books reaching up into the unknown. I wondered to myself where they found room for future Heroes. Suddenly, a deep, soft spoken voice came from my left.

“My husband has a taste for luxurious, but personally I find it to be quite tacky.” I swung my head in the voice’s direction to find a man sitting directly next to me, in the space which moments before had been empty. My heart rate shot up, and I had to consciously prevent my bowels from loosening. He was extremely tall and incredibly thin. He had the bone structure and the almost translucently white skin of a high-born elf but was different somehow.

Elves by nature are filled with magic. Because of this, we possess an ability known as “P’las-tec’h,” or in Common, “The Sense,” which as you might have guessed, allows us to sense when magic is present, or the threshold of magical ability within another being. I had never felt anything like this before. His piercing blue eyes shone from deep sockets.

“For Ful’s sake, Horace, we’ve discussed this. It’s not tacky, it’s refined.” Another voice to my right. I turned to the right, to find another man, again sitting directly next to me. The first man rolled his eyes.

“Reginald, this is not a discussion to be had in front of company. Please, have some tact.”

“Tact? Like when we were entertaining the Conseedant envoy?”

“Oh please, that was a misunderstanding and you know it.” The first man turned toward me. “Would you like some tea, my dear? I just made it” Not sure what was happening, I simply shook my head. The second man, Reginald, was a short man, shorter than me by at least a foot, and his skin much darker than his husband. He had that same magical energy about him. Who were these people?

“Of course he doesn’t want tea, Horace. The man doesn’t have a hand to hold a cup!”

“I am not so high that I am above assisting this poor Q’ling. Here, my young lad, try some of it” Horace put his own cup to my lips, leaving me no choice but to take the dark liquid into my mouth. The taste made our one tusked orc friend’s breath seem like the sweetest royal perfume. I begrudgingly swallowed and smiled, nodding in feigned approval.

The first man sipped his tea. “Young man, do you know who we are?”

I had a few ideas, but after my run in with the orc, I was not in the mood for guessing games. I shook my head.

“My name is Horace; this is my husband Reginald.”

“I gathered that.” I said, dryly.

“We are the Librarians,” said Reginald

“Considering we are in a library, that also make sense.” I was playing coy, but I had heard of the Librarians before. As far as I, or anyone else for that matter knew, they were nothing but a legend. A framework for our culture’s lore.

“Well judging by your background, I’m going to assume you noticed what some of the volumes that fill this library contain.”

My background. My father.

“The initiative.”

Horace smiled, “Correct, my young friend. In each of these volumes is the story of a hero, inspired by a great benevolence to go out to defeat great evil.” Was it just me or did lights actually dim when he said that?

Reginald seemed to disagree with this point. “That’s an interesting way of describing the oligarchy taking advantage of the working class, forcing them to risk their lives to protect a way of life in which they do not realize is demeaning and subservient.”

“That is one way of looking at it, yes, but would you rather have these dark magic fueled loons run amok through our streets?” Then to me, “I apologize, my husband and I do not share the same philosophy regarding the nature of our work.” He placed emphasis on his final word, then fell silent.

The silence persisted. He’s waiting for me to ask, isn’t he? Finally, awkwardly, he continued.

“We are historians. Anthropologians. Oracles, seers. Wise men come to us for wisdom.” The air in the septagonal room began to shift. Loose books began to flip through their pages. Horace began to lift off the ground, his eyes glowing with a powerful white light. His voice, seemingly supported by a chorus, boomed. “Nothing that happens in these worlds escapes our sight. We are omniscience incarnate. We are – “

Reginald cut him off. “And he says I’m overdramatic. Look at yourself, Horace, floating around like some half-baked messianic effigy.” Horace lowered himself, his eyes still glowing. “In essence, my boy – ” Reginald snapped, and the ropes that bound me to the chair loosened. I rubbed my now free wrists, only to realize there had was no chaffing. There had been no ropes at all. “ – we watch over the stories of the Initiative, past, present, and future.”

“So some of these books –“

“Contain the future, yes. Or at least the future to you. Time is in the eye of the beholder.”

Horace spoke up, eyes still aflame. “This is why we have brought you here. You are to be the next Librarian.”