Midas
Location: Royal Archives | Candor |Midas
Time: January 1st, 1001 A.D.
Idiocy had driven his actions up until this point, idiocy and thoughtlessness. That was the fundamental truth he told himself as he continued onward, the sound of running water growing ever louder in the distance. The bookshelves here were much rougher than the ones nearer to the gate, here they were made of rough stone, unchiseled and unceremoniously piled into their current forms. The books that sat on their shelves were massive and desolate to the point of near rot. There were no more than three or five of these tomes to a shelf, and often the covers were bound with animal skin instead of leather, leaving the stretched faces of foxes, bulls, and other indescribable abominations on the covers. Now that he was moving forward at a slow pace he had time to gaze at each book on the self as he passed.
Most of them had no labels and were merely designated by their individual bindings. The few that did have words on their cover were scrawled in dark rust-colored ink, often in large runic letters that he couldn't make out in the dim blue light. But as he scanned the bookcases along his path, a single tome caught his eye. It had a beautiful black cover, made of some dark unknown leather, and it was bound using golden threads that shone brightly even in the darkness of the cave. Lucieon stopped his walk in front of the book and stared at it entranced. It was different from the others, it's size was very normal, about what you would expect a textbook to be, and it didn't smell with the same rotting musk that the other books in this corner of the Archives seemed to emit. He reached out and picked it up, it was heavier than he expected, it seemed that the golden threads that bound the pages together weren't just a visual shorthand. The book was actually gilded with real gold. And the leather that formed the covers was rigid but soft, almost spreading apart at his touch, letting his fingers sink into its warm softness. Lucieon pulled the book off it's seat and held it gently in both hands, almost afraid that his fingers would stretch the soft leather of it's cover. Now that it was closer, he could see the cover in more detail. It was plain and black, made of some leather from a hairless animal. It was smooth, smoother than any of the fine leathers his family had every bought for him, and it was softer than the best feather down he had slept upon. Not to mention that the very essence of the book has a warmth about it. It wasn't hot, but it wasn't lukewarm. It was that untouchable temperature of pleasure. The warm heat of another person, the heat in a kiss, or in an embrace.
Lucieon was shivering now, his hands were cold. Whatever this book was it called to him, perhaps it was the reason he had made his way so far into the Royal Archives. Whatever the case it didn't really matter. He felt compelled to slip a shaking hand under the leather of the cover and flip it open to the first page.
It paper was smooth to the touch and had the same warmth and softness that the cover beheld. And the color of the paper was beautiful. It was creamy, a soft beige that did not mix completely with the white, but instead of clashing violently, they swirled around each other like ink in water, almost giving the paper the illusion of life. As if the paper had blood that flowed in those cream colored veins. The page itself was empty, except for more of the golden embroidery which seemed to trace itself across the entirety of the book. The threads were woven in a massive knot, one that you could not see the beginning, nor see the end. It just kept weaving onward through itself and through the page and through the spine of the book itself. Lucieon held his breath and places a finger on the edge of the first page and pressed down softly to flip it. His finger sank into the paper smoothly, again as if he was touching the skin of a person. The texture of the paper under his fingers seemed heavenly, so much so that it was strange that it existed within his hands. The next page had ink on the paper. A deep dark red ink that shone brilliantly in the ambient blue light from the nearby orbs. The letters were thin and sharp, as if written by a blade.
Lucieon's heart skipped a beat, and his shaking hands would have dropped the book if he had not begun to grip it so tightly that his knuckles grew white. A single sentence was scrawled in neat letters across the page. Perfectly centered, perfectly even in both pressure and stroke. The words read simply.
Book of Fate: Lucieon Shalfa di Rossacitta
Lucieon suddenly started breathing again, his breaths were irregular now, hard and labored. His heart pumped away in his chest, it's noise stirring the thoughts he tried to hold within his mind. Eventually the distraction was too much and he gave up on trying to make sense of the book he held in his hands. The book whose warmth now seemed to coincide with his own beating heart. Without thought he flipped the page and found a wall of text staring back at him. He read each line slowly and deliberately, trying to understand what was written. But the words were gibberish, yet they called up memories of his childhood.
Visions from his birth, almost as if he were a spirit watching the events of his life unfold before him. More and more he read and more and more he saw. He saw himself as a young boy, constantly under the cold tutelage of his mother. Who while shadowing him seemed to be forever distant. Lucieon stood there and continued to read, hours flew by in what seemed like only a few minutes as he watched his life fly before him in vivid memories. Then there was a break in the text. It ended with the same meaningless runes scrawled in thin red ink that it had began with, and it ended with his reading of this book. And then he knew, that the next page would continue about his life, about his future. A prophecy that was not yet cemented, and could at any time change.
He eagerly flipped the page, wishing to know more, to learn about all the people he would help with his knowledge. The people he would cure and the life he could give. But what lay waiting for him on the next session of the book was not an immediate continuation of the story, he was assaulted with visions of himself int he future. At the very least he thought it was himself. The man standing before him had long blonde hair tied into a waist length ponytail and dead cold sapphire eyes. He wore pure white robes that was tied tightly around his body and a sash filled with metallic tools and magical instruments hung from his right shoulder. A young brown haired woman hurried to his side, also wearing, holding a bundle of papers and talking hurriedly. He words were slurred and muffled by whatever magicks the grimoire beheld, obfuscating the truth of the situation from the ethereal observer. But it was apparent that his future self did not enjoy the news the young woman. Lucieon, the older one, began to walk deliberately forward into a large sterile room. It was made pure white by runic magic and a single creature lay curled on the floor in the middle of the chamber. She was a beautiful thing, large amber eyes that shone like liquid gold, long red-brown hair that seemed to shine even in the omnipresent light of the chamber. Her limbs looked thin and delicate and her naked body very soft and unspoilt. She had two ears on the top of her head, much like that of a fox and she had a single large tail that swept between her legs. When Lucieon entered the room her eyes opened wide in fear and she tried to scramble away from him. The older Lucieon picked up a crystal and waved his hand. A ball of light launched itself out of his hand and hit the warg girl squarely int he chest, raising her into the air and binding her hands and feet together. As a spectator, Lucieon couldn't make out her screams, but her face gave away her great distress. The brown haired-woman seemed to avert her eyes from the warg's exposed body, but Lucieon, the old one, walked toward the gild and drew a scalpel in his hand. It was a small smile, faint and subtle, but Lucieon felt it, he felt the happiness that radiated from this mad doctor as his blade fell onto the nubile skin of the beast-kin.
Lucieon shut the book, his face red and his breath heavy. Why was it that there was such perversion? He thought. His heart was pounding fast, his mind was trying to make sense of the scene the book had bestowed upon him. Whose soft leather still warmed his cold hands. He didn't want to become that. No. He wanted to help people. He wanted to do things that stopped pain, not inflict it. It took some time, but eventually the answered appeared to him in soft spoken words. His mother had been training him to become like that, and would in time hand him over to the crown to become an inquisitor. A torturer capable of keeping his prey alive even through the most gruesome mutilations. Someone who could inflict both humility and mortality while keeping the patient's body perfect for resale. He didn't want that. Not at all.
And again his heart jumped. Two cold hands had clasped themselves around his shoulders, and a soft feminine voice fell upon his ears,
"why is it that a human tresspasses upon my domain?" He turned around slowly and found himself face to face with a girl about his age, whose skin was a deathly pale blue and skin slick with some sort of slime. Her eyes were blank and white and her hair was a light pink, almost as if her hairs were filled with the tiniest fragment of blood. She was unclothed, and her body dissolved into something terrifying below her waist. Indeed she was a perfect human from above the waist, entrancingly beautiful in fact, but below her waist her body melted into a giant mass of scales that fell off the stone walkway and curled itself across the bookshelves and suspended stone paths many dozens of times. Along that body were half a dozen pairs of clawed legs, gripping tightly onto the stone fixings.
