In The Beyond...

[Morigung-oog 2352]

 

 

[Music to set the mood..]

Spoiler

[OOC: As this character is shunting, this would not be considered public knowledge. However, anyone with an Arcane Displacement FA is welcome to have seen Valindra in the realm of Cognos.]

“I am nothing.”

A notion that had come to Valindra all too long ago, though for entirely different reasons. Where once, she stood within the safety of her quarters, she now stood flanked by vast rows of bookshelves, knowledge in its infinities. Even above, they lurked, floating far above her head, and below into a bottomless abyss. Her fingers lightly grazed but one of those shelves, her star-speckled gaze panning over the numerous volumes on display, some recognisable, some in languages truly incomprehensible to the mali even with her centuries of life. An infinite land of all knowledge, from the common, to the esoteric to the outright forbidden; it all awaited the prying eyes of the ‘aheral.

 

“But a speck of sand in a ceaseless desert...”

 

Amidst the endless founts of knowledge, there lingered an air of obsession; an obsession to see all, to know all, for all was contained within this infinite plane. Amidst her wonder, the mali had been all too quick to let down her guard, the sensation luring her in with more efficiency than any siren’s song. She drew closer to the shelf, a gloved hand reaching forth to pluck one of the many volumes stacked within.  Her fingers deftly flicked through each page as it was thoroughly scoured for its fruit of wisdom. Reading proved an enjoyable pastime, a welcome break from the horrors she faced back on the material plane. Sweet respite, peace.

 

“... A snowflake in an endless tundra…”

 

And there she stayed, at first, each book returned neatly to its place, though as hours turned into days and days into weeks, her insanity gave way to her methodical nature. Upon completion, each book was promptly thrown onto a mountainous stack, some stained with the rations she’d occasionally partaken in. Sleep had been replaced with the scion’s trance. Four hours of meditation on the knowledge ingested per day, though she rested only when she felt exhaustion loom. Within Cognos, day and night seemed all but foreign concepts. Pages were torn from novellas, pocketed if even the most useless of phrase caught the 'aheral's eye or shredded by gnashing teeth if deemed even slightly irrelevant.

 

"...Or a lone star in the infinite void..."

 

Her stack of rations shrunk to a scarce luxury and then to simply nothing. Eventually that stack of perused journals grew so colossal. it  overbalanced, tipping aside and falling away into the abyss, lost. Starvation loomed on the horizon.  Her lips became chapped and sore. Her once silken locks frazzled and laced with grease.

 

Death would have been inevitable, if not for an unlikely savior.

 

A final book was frantically yanked from the shelf,  though the elf’s scrutinous, near feral glare only grazed the title before it was hurled full-pelt into the darkness below. She let out a shriek of disgust, hurling her head over the end to expel the contents of her stomach with a series of gurgled wretches.

 

“No- begone! I shall not be privy to a realm that houses such horrendous volumes!”

 

A circle of salt, a few scratches  of occult nature carved desperately into the wooden floor, and with a sudden leap into the starry rift created, and that elf, grounded by an unlikely hero, vanished back to the material plane.

 

Discarded even when it did save a life, the book tumbled through the dark. Nobody would ever know of the heroism of the inanimate object known as:

 

Bronzesmithing Volume I, by Quavinir Thriceborn

[ThatFunkyBunch 2066]

I can't ******* believe this book saved someone 

[Punished_Pup 1364]

Live Laerdya reaction.

[TreeSmoothie 4898]

Somewhere, an Arcasian historian is teaching his students about old Sutica's economy. "The mali who went by Quavininir caused mass inflation with all those damned bronze combs and masks. Made bronze crafts useless, he did!"