RoverStorm
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(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.
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Lyra turns to look at the gentleman, and pinches her dress for a curtsy. "Thank you, sir. I am welcome. And I come seeking to learn." "Learn what?" "What I can." Lyra glances away from the man at the city before continuing. "I am a child, at least as far as us Elves are concerned. I'm at the point of independence, yes, but still a child. I am ignorant to the world, and wish to change that." The man nods "Never met an Elf younger than fifteen, that explains your height." He clearly did not have ill intent but Lyra's head snaps back to him with a glare. "Oi! I'm eighteen." She said haughtily. The man holds up his hands, momentarily having a look of surprise. "My bad, I assumed you were younger than that if you were still a child." Lyra slowly dropped her glare. "Well there's a saying about assumptions. And to an Elf, anything younger than fifty is still a child." "You don't say? I once talked to an Orphanage-a mostly human one-that raised an Elf, and they said they grew up at the same rate." Thankful for the distraction, Lyra and the man continued on to exchange Elven and Human customs before Lyra suddenly cut off mid-sentence. "Is....is there a bakery stand at that bazaar?" "Yes! Locals sell their baked goods at the bazaar, and many foreign traders cook leftover food that would perish during their next trip." Lyra was already running off toward the bazaar, in search of the irresistible smell. A short while later, Lyra was walking next to the man, with a basket full of steaming hot pasteries. She happily munched on them as she listened to the man give her the tour of the city. "Whuzzut?" She asked, mouth full, as she pointed to a large tower that was predominantly placed near the center of town. "That's the library. I imagine you may enjoy yourself there. It may not compare to some of the Grand Libraries from where you come from, but it's very impressive to us. There's also a greenhouse and an observatory on the top, although it's hard to see from here." She gulped. "And that?" She pointed to a large Cathedral. "A Cathedral, for worshipping....actually, aren't Elves materialistic?" "Wub bo wu meah?" She gulped again. "What do you mean?" "I'm under the impression that Elves don't worship deities." "Perhaps, but that doesn't mean we....we....d-d-d-d-dism-m-iss sp...spirits." Lyra had noticed that a downward descending staircase alongside the side of the Cathedral had a sign next to it that read 'Crypt'. The man had not noticed where she looked before she looked straight ahead, and quickly maneuvered herself so that the man was between her and the Cathedral. She cleared her throat. "So, do you worship the dead to....appease them?" "Oh no-no-no, we don't worship ancestors here, we worship..." The man gave a brief rundown of the local faith while Lyra returned to munching. They passed through an archway into a mess of houses with the bottom floor walls removed. Anvils, forges, open crucibles, cooling vats, and overflowing wheelbarrows littered every corner. The sound of hammering on anvils, the whooshing wind of bellows, and orders being shouted filled the air. "This is way more gritty than anything back home. But it seems way more efficient than how elves build smithies." Lyra exclaimed as she looked around the Smithy District. "Well if you don't mind getting covered in charcoal soot and sweat, it's effective. Although the dwarves beat us with their open lava forges. It's a good trade to learn; you'll never be out of a job. Although elves prefer archery, don't they?" Lyra stayed quiet. "Up here is the barracks, across the street from the armory. Soldiers who don't have a home in the city stay there. Sometimes they train there, sometimes they train elsewhere. Mercenaries are also required to stay there by law. Mercenary work might be good for you if you can fight." "I can use a sword." "Not a bow?" "I WANT to learn how to use a bow, but if I can't lift my eighty pound bed, how am I supposed to fire a short bow with a draw strength of a hundred pounds? Let alone a longbow." "Fair enough" the man nodded. "A sword has little muscle requirement." "But I'm not giving up on the bow yet. You can earn more muscles, after all." The man watched her scarf down a cookie immediately after saying this and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. "Perhaps you should look at learning some magic. It's possible you don't need muscles for that." Lyra looked up at the building around her. "I want to, but no elf would teach magic to a child. And I doubt any local teachers would teach a stranger. Magic is rare, and the last thing you want is to give unspeakable weapons to a future enemy. By any chance, do you know local magic teachers?" The man nods. "Of course I know them. I know many powerful people in the city." Lyra began to wonder if the man was befriending her because she was particularly well-dressed and the only elf on her ship. The man showed her to a 'most trustworthy inn' and bid farewell. As she sat in a wooden chair on her balcony, she stared off into the starlit sky, pondering what she should do now that she was truly alone. Most likely study, perhaps simply take some time and travel around, and figure out what she wanted to do. Perhaps find a problem to fix. She briefly considered focusing on making friends, before she suddenly realized something. "I never asked him his name!" (Note here: Outfit on Alex model (see below) not final, I make all skins myself and while the skin I picked works, I haven't changed the outfit from a vaguely mid-renaissance fantasy marching uniform, which is probably not what High Elves usually wear when they travel). Her eyes are purple, and the wiki says that elven eye color is bright when they're young and grows darker with age, and since Lyra is very young to reflect how new I am, I made them bright but they may be a bit too bright. I went as-is until I get feedback on those details. Naturally, I am welcome to making changes to it.) (EDIT: I've been using my waiting period to make better outfits and make further changes at the suggestions of a ST member. Although I have a few outfits prepared, I can only load one image down below. They said they thought the outfit worked, but I'm still not convinced and I am amendable to making changes, or scrapping it in favor of the newer ones.)
