It were several hours past high noon. At the summit of an endless aether the golden sun reigned supreme, radiating its magnificence boldly across the library and bathing the world in the light of day. From the heavens, delicate flakes of snow descended in a gentle and unbroken cascade, cloaking a vast city below in a shimmering white veil. At the library's outermost peak – twin ogreish statues crouched in eternal vigilance, their weathered forms now cloaked in snow with the coming of winter. The icy mantle lent an air of solemnity to their grotesque features as the snowfall carried with it a subtle chill.
The library itself was a uncommon pyramidal structure, a towering triune of stone walls aligned in a triangular shape casting a sharp shadow to its left. Within were books to no end, stories old and new, famed and unheard, told and withered away in the voided black amongst endless other stories long forgotten. They stand aligned side-by-side like soldiers at war, stored between the wooden spaces of towering shelfs with their spines exposed and their covers hidden behind wooden shelter in a vast room of sixteenth century baroque fashion. The walls were paneled with mahogany, their rich grain catching the soft glow of the oil lamps. Above, a frescoed ceiling swirled with soft blues and vibrant golds while a crimson tapestry, its threads glinting faintly as it hung proudly by the hearth. An elaborately gilded settee stood in the corner of the room, its plush crimson cushions embroidered with floral motifs. The legs, carved like coiled serpents, seemed almost alive under the flickering lamplight vectored from chandeliers of gold-painted brass and crystal glass that bathed the inner library in a soft, flickering glow. Furthermore it was the opulent golden light streaming through stained glass windows adorned with scenes of mythic triumphs that basked the room in this prismatic veil. The many chandelier-held candles casted gentle light over a fashionable arrangement of scarlet-leathered couches. These elegant seats encircled a smooth-surfaced tea table, resting atop a walnut and pine checkered floor that gleamed like a polished chessboard. A grand staircase spiraled upwards in a sweeping curve, its gilded balustrade catching every flicker of candlelight. Against the wall stood a high-backed chair of dark walnut, its surface carved with the exploits of ancient heroes and the armrests ending in fierce lion heads. Above, the immense chandelier of crystal and brass cascaded like a frozen waterfall casting evermore prismatic glimmers onto the frescoed ceiling, alive with scenes of angels in tumultuous flight just as it did the furniture below. The higher atop what seemed to the eye as endlessly towering shelfs, the older the age of books thus the older the story, until at the mountainous peak of this pyramidal tower of a library, a single bookshelf contained manuscripts of torn and wornout pages with inked letters so old they may just tale about the genesis of the all-maker's creations.
But below, on the shallow ground of the grand library, seated at a lacquered table adorned with intricate carvings of twisting vines, feline paws and cherubic faces, was a figure who seemed insubstantial at a glance. His back slumped against an elaborate chair. Its high, curving backrest upholstered in crimson velvet with golden embroidery as his torso sprawled across the table's polished surface. Lost to a deep slumber, he drooled in an unbroken and steady stream onto the table's fine inlay of ivory and ebony, indifferent to the artistry around him.
Round glasses sat askew on his oversimplified face, their thin golden rims catching the flickering candlelight from the grand chandeliers above. He snored in equal rhythmic intervals, his breaths an almost musical contrast to the quiet stillness of the space. His hair, a pallette of pale white like the freshly fallen snow on the library's baroque sculptures, framed his face in disheveled strands. Dull grey eyes hidden behind closed lids would have mirrored the cold iron of a knight's armour had they been opened.
Beside him, a precarious tower of abandoned books rose as if all their contents had been studied, their embossed leather covers and gilded spines catching the glow of the library. Titles of long-forgotten wisdom and imaginative worlds seemed to have lost their taunt to him in their splendor. The opulence of the setting made his humble presence all the more jarring, a sleeping figure lost in the extravagance of a space built for scholars. The books towered with a slight leaning tilt and proclaimed boldly with their spines the following names from top to bottom in the given sequence: Letter From The Old One, Baasthion's Bible, The Book of the Living, The Necropandoreum, Fillmore's Old Testament and The Plutopian Codex.
The Letter from The Old One, likely the most recently read collaboration of historical texts, influenced an expressive passion within the boy whom had drawn onto paper what the Letter from Old One described with the first words written in dried, partly smoldered black ink on its pages. Thus the boy drew on his paper in form what he had extracted from the Letter from the Old One in words with a steady pencil. The Letter From the Old One spoke of creatures that poured down from under an arched ceiling built over an altar as inches beneath its cover opened a rift to reveal a black canvas, ever distant star-like lights glimmered in the midst of it. It were almost like a mere fraction of the infinite expanse of the night sky, cloudless, and colored dimly by the faint glow of faraway nebulas. The creatures could fit any obscure description of the uncanny. Alien, deamon or mutant - it mattered not what they were but they were many. Swarming in a downpour from the space-like expanse. Their bodies were serpentine in design, but spineless and composed of soft tissue cloaked under a transparent mucus. Boneless centipedal lumps of flesh sprouten from their sides, flexible like the tentacles of an octopus. Without eyes they somehow perceived their surroundings and opened what can only function as a mouth that were hidden under a slab of foreskin. Large, predatory teeth the creatures had flexed open and close through powerful muscles.
Painted with tempera over his delicate pencil sketches, the art piece before him was a collaboration of bright and muted tones that breathed life into the page, transforming it into a mythic mural. Each brushstroke seemed to give shape of a whisper of ancient tales and forgotten gods taken from the Letter From the Old One. As he slept ever so peacefully, the boy's current mission was to wait patiently for the paint to dry and the pigments to set before adding a new page to the unfinished manuscripts piled haphazardly atop the polished table. A glass paperweight anchored the twenty-one-by-twenty-two centimeter page – evidence of hours of meticulous artistic practice – keeping it firmly in place amidst the clutter. The table was carved with ornate flourishes and supported by lion-pawed legs and bore not just the weight of the sleeping boy, but also an assortment of minor accessories scattered as if abandoned mid-thought. The quiet harmony of the space steeped in golden light and suffused with the rich scent of drying paint was both serene and chaotic, a tableau of restless creativity frozen in time.
The hushing stillness that cloaked the library was soon shattered by the tumultuous rhythm of a whistling thunder cracked in a flash of crimson light beneath the vaulted ceiling where the hand-painted angels soared in eternal flight with their forms frozen in celestial glory. Like an iron command the thudding crash bellowed with a bourdon's volume, stirring the boy abruptly awake in an unprovoked quaking disturbance. From the blinding flash a figure materialized whom at first glance was a stark contrast to the boy, now awake and at awe, blinded by the scarlet nebula that formed across of him. Her sudden feminine form was an angelic vision, her untanned porcelain skin glowing faintly in the chandelier's golden light and her naked body lay poorly cloaked under a veiled silken cover tracing her petite form as she was lost to a deep unconsciousness. Her breath paced with measured grace blew a gentle air, whispering against the polished checkered floor.
Her presence brought an immediate shift to the library's atmosphere, like a wolf stepping silently into a flock of helpless sheep. She settled gracefully across from the boy with cotton-white hair, reclined in a slumber gently against the uncushioned library floor that lacked finely padded upholstery. Her tar-black hair cascaded as freely as a glimmering river as though under moonlight with its luster reflected in the soft glow of the surrounding oil lamps. Her lips were as red as freshly spilled blood and seemed all the more vivid under the chandelier's golden light, their fullness almost hypnotic.
The boy leapt from his seat decorated with the finest velvet upholstery in swift response, like a dazzling gazelle of caramel fur prancing out in the forest wild and fixed his glasses in an the proper fashion to sit proportionate to his face. His tailored suit, crafted from heavy-weight fabrics, radiated vintage elegance and rugged charm. A charcoal-grey double-breasted waistcoat peeked from beneath a raven-black overcoat, paired with a matching flat cap he left abandoned on the table. His leather shoes bore no trace of snow or dampness and his eyes, dull and colorless, much like the muted tones of his attire - trailed the mysterious character and journaled her every feature. A soft, almost fading perfuming scent she emitted, reminiscent of a dark and dim, yet beautiful flower - and that the boy hadn't fail to take notice of also as he visually inspected the doll-like mistress that had collapsed to the floor in a flashing bang.
Behind closed lids hid eyes of oceanic radiance, their ivory-cream hues gleaming with a subdued elegance once opened and their glaring gaze drifted briefly to the boy, his subdued presence in the glow of the library standing out like a storm cloud adrift in an otherwise clear sky. Her glare sharpened like a blade, lingering on him with a quiet intensity. In a tone as sharp and commanding as tempered steel the mysterious girl spoke, her words gilded with the confidence of unquestioned authority. "Be my slave." Her voice carried the weight of a queen addressing a mere foot soldier. The boy's instincts urged him to meet her command with stoic silence, but the unprovoked question compelled a measured idiocy. "...hah!?" he replied like a moron. His voice faltered. After a brief pause, he added with a subtle shift in tone, "...you..are you..okay?." "You..are.. my.. loyal...servant" she pressed, her eyes narrowing. Her irises slid to the corners of her gaze, dissecting every subtle movement Nils Fehrenbach made.
"What's up with this idiot!?"
The distinct color of her eyes betrayed her nature, otherworldly and angelic, but she bore none of the celestial hallmarks described in the library's sacred manuscripts. No golden sun hovered in eternal radiance behind her. No veil of shimmering rainbow light concealed her face. Most notably, no silver-white wings spread from her back – the defining trait of all angels. Yet, despite the absence of these sacred signs Nils knew, or perhaps only assumed that the girl who had appeared before him was an angel, likely of the lowest rank which explained why she had yet to develop the missing features. His gaze, which had been fixated on her corpse-pale skin in reverent awe, dropped swiftly in burning embarrassment. She had emerged from a sudden, blinding flash of light, her form lying gracefully atop the polished wooden floor, veiled in silken cloth that seemed to shift and shimmer with its own light. Her beauty was beyond anything Nils had ever seen, like a figure torn from the pages of a masterwork painting come to life posed perfectly for his artistic eye.
"I merely wonder" Nils said in measured tones, "for what reason an angel of the fifteenth rank would approach me... claiming me as her loyal slave?"
"What importance is my super-duper super-secret master plan of world domination to you?" the angel asked, her gaze drifting briefly away from Nils Fehrenbach.
"...".
The angel froze as her eyes flicked between Nils' twitching finger and his twitching eye. A long pause lingered in the air, punctuated only by the faint hum of the oil lamps. Her divulgence hung in the space between them like a fragile thread, but Nils did not relax to her words.
"World domination..?" he replied. His tone as restrained as her posture.
"What– how did you know about my super-duper super-secret master plan!? Did you read my mind!?" She gasped loudly for air. "Are you a celestine worthy!?" Her voice soft and soothing by nature, yet her manner of speech as sharp as a razor as if she was serious but her words were that of an imbecile.
Nils froze mid-thought with a comical expression. "There's no way she's serious!!"At her remark Nils' expression stiffened. His glare narrowed with a sharp and almost predatory intensity. The subtle movement, although silent, was a clear warning of an exhausted patience.
"Oh I see...so that's what's going on.."
"?"
"You're an absolute idiot!!"
"Uwha—?"
"Well for your information, cleaning bat poop every morning is better than idiocy. The library will welcome you as its newest janitor."
"....".
"Well?" Nils pressed.
"Nevermind, you're as sharp as a marble – terrible slave". Her reply was swift, precise and derict. A verbal death sentence as the words pierced Nils deeply. And the following phrase was just her twisting the dagger. "Cleaning poop sucks, you suck. I don't want you anyway, I'm leaving. And after all this effort of coming here naked to".
"The heck..?"
"I'll find another slave and make a harem to take over the world!"
Nils felt his heart shatter like glass and it sank deep into the abysmal void of nothingness.
"That's just plain mean! Nils muttered. "The bats help against pests, you know? So taking care of the bats is like taking care of the books." He confirmed smoothly. "Also, what absolute nonsense are you talking about!?"
No answer came save for the whisper of the wind through the columns and the silence of solitude was all that replied. His snow-white hair rippled like ocean waves in the wind that blew in from the open doors and they framed a face that spoke of melancholy. His dull eyes glittered in the dancing lamplight, but the light could not conceal the weariness etched into his expression. He let out a low, wistful sigh.
"So she sprinted out, huh?"
The winter breeze had set in over the Prussian continent (one of the six continents of Einar). It was cold and unforgiving. The stone roads were scraped clean and the snow that had piled overnight was thrown to the roadside, lining the trees and the street lamps. Horse-pulled wagons and carriages rolled by one after the other and their steel-plated wooden wheels crunched against the frost. Snowflakes clung to the hairs of the horses and glimmered like faint white sparks. In the town plaza, market sellers covered wooden barrels with tattered capes and made makeshift tables. They sold fruit and vegetables for high prices, as the unforgiving winter stunned their growth, sustained only through the use of Odom-granted gifts. The market sellers shouted loudly over one another and beckoned with bold gestures for pedestrians to buy their goods. They were lively and determined even in the harsh winter. Nils glanced briefly at the fruits and vegetables on display and wondered with a drifting mind. A fountain with its water frozen in the winter cold like a sparkling sculpture, stood center in the magnificent city of Ridgemond. Its stillness was a vast contrast to the activity around it. Beyond the fountain the tumultuous chimes of harbor bells loudened near the port were ships rocked steadily in the dark, blueish-black sea water. Nils strode purposefully through the plaza, exiting the library. With every whispering breath he took, a pale and cold cloud danced under his nose in the icy air. He paced toward the Ridgemond cemetery, past the bronze statue of an old man standing resolute atop a stone altar. At its base was connected a brass pump-activated faucet, frost-covered and it gleamed.
He strode hastily past the iron bars that walled the cemetery from the rest of Ridgemond. The gates had been flung wide open and stood fixed in that manner with their hinges creaking faintly in the winter breeze. The snow that steadily cascaded on the muddy cemetery ground had mixed with the moist sand and formed a slush that clung to boots like decay. The shadows of countless crosses overlapped one another and the tombstones of each grave stood with solemnity, damp and cold under the weight of the season. In the distance was a man standing in-between a cluster of graves, his brown beard was thick and neatly combed and his eyes a stark blue. His untanned pale skin had shrunken from the bitter, winter-wrought cold under a heavy fabric cocoon coat and a non-collapsible top hat that lay perched on his head. His cold fingers he hid under the shelter of gloves as he held a warm cup of coffee. Its warmth was visible in the faint curls of vapor rising into the frigid air.
"I hadn't expected anyone to come and say their goodbyes this harsh winter" smiled the man, his stern voice was aged and weathered like the graves he tended. He was the keeper of the Ridgemond cemetery and his watchful eyes have prevented many grave robberies.
"I won't stay long today" Nils responded, stopping in conversational distance from the man.
"Well, you know where to find her". The aged man said as he sipped his warm coffee with a quick slurp, his lips briefly kissing the steaming coffee. "The winter is cruel, best you don't take too long"
Nils nodded gently to the man and dotted toward the left of the cemetery were he stopped in front of a grave. The tombstone read 'Demeter Fehrenbach, 1598–1630, loving wife and mother'.
He crouched, the cold biting him through the fabric as he puffed several shorts breaths of pale cold clouds. He reached under his black coat, in its flat pockets in high up to his chest. From it, he extracted the painting and placed it to lean against the damp and cold tombstone, facing the picture toward himself. He paused, an icy breath after each word.
"I painted you another one of your favorites. This is from the Letter Of The Old One. I'm a little late with it because I've been procrastinating a lot lately, hope you don't mind"
There was no reply save the sting of the cold winter breeze.
"Goodbye mother. I'll visit tomorrow — and I don't think I'll ever paint void worms again, they look disgusting" his lips were pale, dry and frozen under a thin layer of snow. "Actually, I imagine anything from the Void looks disgusting. To this day I don't understand your fascination with them"
Nils stormed out the cemetery, each step crushing against the ice-concealed floor. As he neared the town square, his destination came into view. His house.
The lighting in Nils' room was dim, casted only by six candles fixed to the rim of a wooden wheel suspended by chains from the ceiling. Their flickering candlelight danced against the blue soft-fabric curtains that concealed the window and muffled the chill of the whistling winter air that seeped through its cracks. A large woven mat sprawled across the cold stone floor of which its edges were pinned beneath the sturdy wooden legs of the bed. The bed itself was neatly made. Draped with a simple cotton blanket. Across from the bed, near the door of the room, stood a small rounded table covered in a blue cloth. It held a single candleholder, a tiny wooden chest no longer than seven inches and a pot of ink partially dried with a swan feather quill left abandoned in its depths. Beside the table was a modest wooden stool, its surface worn smooth by years of use.
Next to the bed stood a wooden cabinet. Its shelves were lined mostly with books, though one corner to its left held an empty cup faintly scented with citrus tea and above it rested a framed painting of a draconic figure with its wings spread in angelic flight. The room was neither cramped nor spacious, but rather just enough to provide comfort without indulgence. The air lingered damp and cool as a faint chill crept in despite the curtain pushing back against the breeze. Yet the warmth of the candles battled it steadily, their heat slowly filling the space with a subtle and transient coziness.
This was the room of Nils Fehrenbach. A quiet, unassuming sanctuary that whispered of its occupant's habits, interests, and solitude.