RoverStorm
-
Posts
3 -
Joined
-
Last visited
1 Follower
.thumb.png.d3bfe8801fe70f788570cf9990b99a9e.png)
-
(On one of the last pages of the Elysium Post, in the bottom half section, rests the following article) Elysium Library Open At Last! It has been many years since work began on the library here in Elysium. After much tribulation, I, the Chancellor of Education in Elysium, am quietly announcing to the public it is open. I do not wish to get your hopes up, though. This is a start, not the end. We have a modest collection consisting almost exclusively of generous donations from around the lands, which remains unsorted and many books are the only copy we have, and in too poor a condition to make fast copies of. There are some empty spaces, and you will see rennovations in the years to come. Yet we have books on the shelves and furniture collecting dust. So we might as well be open so what books are ready can be read and what furniture we have can be used. In the coming months our next step is to slowly put more and more of our collection on shelves, and perhaps organize it further. At the moment, too many genres would be in an entire section all to their own, while many books are on their last legs and too risky to put on shelves. With this, I shall detail two things. What the Library does, and what you can do to participate. First, we obvious offer a place to learn. Anyone is free to visit the ground floor and the two floors above it as long as the city is not in lockdown. Pardon the construction supplies. There is books on the shelves, furniture to relax at, and carpets or classrooms for public discussions. In the future, classrooms may be reserved at various times for classes, but more on that later in this article. The Restricted Floor may be visited at the permission of any member of the Department of Education. The primary purpose is to give a more peaceful and secluded floor to study and discuss, away from the noisy classrooms and the lovely sound of Elysium's town square flowing in through the open windows. We also reserve authority to deny access to known troublemakers or those who disturb other patrons of the Library. Other floors exist primarily for Department of Education Staff, and may or may not be open to the public in the future after rennovations. Second, we offer books to read. While our book count is modest at the moment, I have high aspirations to swell our collection. Our collection so far has been almost entirely from generous donations, as mentioned above. However, while a wonderful start, we are looking at ways to expand. In the future, I hope to host competitions to write books for the Library. Many of my staff are also enthusiastic about running a bookstore. Rest assured, the existance of a bookstore will not prevent you from reading a book in our collection for free. This is more an idea to help secure funds for the Library. Third, as a second business, we intend to restore books which are in disrepair. Many books in our collection are in poor condition. We cannot use the usual fast copy method prefered by most. So my solution is to manually copy the book, letter for letter, into a fresh one. This is time consuming, and we have much more pressing matters, but this will one day become a task we can offer to the public. We will be happy to restore a book free of charge if we are allowed to keep the original book while you take home a still good condition copy. Otherwise, for a fee, we will keep the copy and return the original book to you. We cannot offer this at the moment since we still have sorting to do with our own collection, but it is a future mission. Fourth, we intend to offer classes, to fullfill our duty as both the Library and University of Elysium. We currently do not have classes ready or teachers to teach, so for now just the Library portion is open, but among our next steps is to begin teaching. So how can you participate? First, membership currently is free and voluntary. We only ask you to be active. Active I define here in that you interact in some way with us once a year (IRL week) and you can be contacted within 24 hours. Membership is also granted in person by a Ministry of Education staff, and we reserve the right to revoke it for any reason. All membership revocation also may be appealed to the Master of Education/Chancellor of Education, currently me. Beyond this, we will also find it incredibly helpful if you could fill out the survey on the back of this sheet. I also plan to host events. I need to work out details with my staff on this topic, which is to say I haven't brought up the topic with them yet, so more to come at later dates. We also always need more donations. We accept books, both ones that are written and ones that are blank and are components of bookshelves. Feathers also are helpful for obvious reasons. Beyond this, we have a changing list of resources that would be helpful. Soon we will have a notice board at the entrance to the Library, where you can find things that we currently need as well as important announcements at-a-glance. Finally, for the most commited, we could use more staff. We have few Librarians, and just one individual interested in being a Professor. We have work in both fields. Be warned, the work is tedious. We need people to help our current staff sort the collection, update the ledger, copy books that are in disrepair manually, and generally help out visitors. We need professors to teach subjects. His Highness, Duke Eugeo de Astrea, is considering actually paying anyone fully trained in alchemy to teach, but we also need mundane teachers. Many in Elysium are interested in occupational training, and some have expressed interest in basic education such as literacy and arithmetic. I have reached the end of my alloted space. You can find me or my staff at the Elysium Library, located in the town square behind the clinic. Thank you for reading this article. My name is Lyra Fanalla.
-
(PLEASE NOTE: I am brand new, and this will probably show some ignorance to various things. I'm not trolling, I legit have only the wiki and "generic Tolkien Fantasy" lore to write this with. This backstory is secondary; I'd be willing to take one someone else wrote). Lyra was born to the Fanalla family, in the land of Haelun'or, as a mali'aheral. At present, she is their only child. Her parents where fairly standard as far as parents go, if a little hands-off. She preferred to spend her spare time in the family study, first insisting that her parents read to her, then reading by herself. She quickly learned while reading that there was always more to the story, and a book had to be finished before you could make an opinion. She later was taught by her parents how to cook, but she struggled. Her mother was convinced that cooking may simply be a skill she may never learn, but Lyra was convinced that this wasn't the end of the book, as all her fairy tail books had happy endings if you kept going. Two years later, she was able to place an edible meal on the table for her parents and friends. She eventually learned that not all stories end happily, but she kept the motto "I'll rest when I'm dead." Her education came from an elf approaching her sixth century in age, whom lived on a distant estate and taught nearby children. Her friend group included the sparse few children whom were also were taught there. This included a quiet girl whose family was secretly a devout Canonist, a fearless boy who yearned to become a hunter of monsters, a flirty girl who was obsessed with fashion and boys, a pair of spoiled troublemaker twins, an older girl whom was a bit of a bully, and an older boy who was a wizard's apprentice and was also her crush. She spent hours listening to him going on and on about complex theories about magic (no she does not start knowing about magic other than it exists). Little did either of them know that this "wizard" was a fraud, who was more skilled in stage tricks than actual magic. Later, when she was twelve, her parents moved to a large city due to the failing health of a distant and respected relative. The most important part of this to Lyra is that it put her within walking distance of The Eternal Library, and being a mali'aheral meant she was allowed to visit. There, she indulged herself on books (at least ones that she didn't need a library card for) of the full world, and she realized just how small her world had been thus far. Here began her desire to travel and see more of the world. After two weeks in the city, the relative passed away, and the funeral was conducted. There, from the crowd, she saw the person whom would truly inspire her to seek magic. Iatrilemar Elervathar had personally attended the funeral to give some words for the deceased. Afterwards, she heard rumors from the fellow attendees about his legends, and began to research more on his works. The boy from back home whom knew such little magic was soon forgotten as she dove into Iat's stories and the magic he weaved. Her mild interest turned into a fury as she discovered that the "wizard" that her friend spoke of was a fake, then fascination as she realized the barest beginnings of magic. Even after earning a Library card, she was denied access to any books that actually described magic and how to perform it due to her age, so she tried to learn as much as she could on famous magicians and the people who used it. Her studies had not gone un-noticed. The Library curator suggested she travel the world for a year or two, and when she turned 15 her parents agreed, so she left Haelun'or to go sight seeing. Her travels led her to visit the markets of Setica, packed between mesas. The high walls of Providence in the Orenian Empire, with it's steeples and grand estates. The ancient trees and mystical plants that made up the homes of the Druidic Order. The crowded city of brick and color that is Haense. And finally, she visited the fertile town of Elysium, a haven in the frigid and hardy Norland. In all her travels, she learned the local legends, enjoyed the scenery, and tried the sweetest pasteries they offered. And as always, she relentlessly pursued any knowledge on magic she could find, only to turn up empty handed. Possibly due to her age, or perhaps due to her being a stranger. When she returned to Haelun'or, she threw herself back into her studies. What truly drove her studious nature into an obsession was that she began to treat her research as escapism. For a problem that was slowly becoming evident had become obvious by her four month travels. She had stopped growing, and was short. Very short. Just over 5 feet tall would be short for a human adult female, let alone an elf. Her parents scrambled to prove their pure lineage, or figure out if she was sick. The sad truth was it was no disease, curse, or heritage problem; she was simply unlucky enough to get a bad genetic mutation. Lyra, for once, had a problem she will likely never fully learn or solve through sheer determination. Although she did start wearing shoes and boots that made her look taller. High Elf culture shunned impure blood, and what was an elf as tall as a human to indicate of her heritage? Lyra began to worry that she may bring shame to her parents. The curator said they wouldn't revoke her Library card, but advised avoiding the other patrons and visiting when it wasn't crowded. Her response became chaotic, and from all directions. Even as she began to grow defensive of her height and pure mali heritage, her hidden opinion on the supremecy of mali'aheral turned from indifferent to disgust, yet also she began to hide her ears beneath her hair to try and appear less elven at all. One minute she's trying to prove her pure-blood, the next she's lamenting elven culture, but the whole time her wanderlust always grew ever stronger. Finally, when she turned 18, she decided to strike out on her own, before something happened, such as a visit from someone with the Okariran. She declared that she was going off to earn a tuition to The Eternal College, and she would not burden her parents with the cost. It was not a lie, but only if she did not learn magic somewhere else first. Thus begins the story of Lyra Fanalla.... ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
