A/N: It might seem a little strange that we've started posting stories about the quest that came before the quest we usually write about. It feels fitting to me, since this is how things happened when we were role playing. We were in the middle of our story when we suddenly asked "well, what came before this?" And thus Proto-TROUF was born. These stories take place many, many years in the past, although we never really decided how many. This story features the first user of the Codex Crystal, Leffi. - Rachel
In The Library of Skye
Every story has a beginning. Sometimes you think you've started at the beginning but it turns out, you actually started halfway through. You start to realize that every beginning is the end of another story, a story that has it's own beginning, from a long line of other stories with other beginnings. There is always something else that came before.
For Leffita, scholar elf of the Library of Skye, there was nothing more fascinating than tracking down as many stories and beginnings as she could get her hands on. This was understandable, since she'd grown up in the great Library, a wonder to all who lived in the realm, a storehouse for innumerable written materials that chronicled a patchwork history. Even as a small elf, it was her habit to get herself lost in the “stacks,” as the great collection of books was often called. Her parents never doubted that she should become a scholar. It seemed a natural fit.
And it was a good fit in many ways, but the problem with Leffi was that she couldn't stay still. Oh, she could spend hours in one place reading a good book, but she couldn't spend more than a few days in one city before she was itching to travel again and see new places. She was on a never ending quest to learn new things, to see things she'd never seen before, as though she thought that if she just kept at it, one day she would have seen everything in the world worth seeing.
Her mother claimed that she inherited this from her father, who was half elf and half human, born to wanderers and a traveler himself once. After meeting Leffi's mother, her father settled down and his vagrant tendencies were passed down to his daughter and only child. As soon as she was old enough, Leffi began traveling, and now she'd been at it for over ten years.
On this day, she had returned to the Library after a long journey, bringing two ancient scrolls with her. She was in an exceptionally good mood, for though the journey had been hard, she had seen many wonderful things and achieved her goal of acquiring the scrolls for the Library.
She skipped up the grand marble stairs to the entrance, pushing through the great doors with a grin on her face. The Library was very quiet, which was not unusual. Aside from boisterous Leffi, most scholars of the Library preferred to have quiet during their studies. One or two elves shushed Leffi even now as she made her way across the threshold to the Librarian's Desk.
The Librarian's Desk was as elaborate as the rest of the Library. It was huge and carved from marble as well, and at present it was piled high with books and scrolls to be inspected and added to the collection. Leffi peered around it, but found that there was no one there. She huffed a bit, impatient, and began to look around the large first floor for the person she knew had to be there somewhere.
“Prudence!” she called out, which resulted in a chorus of shushing from the elves studying. Leffi just made faces at the ones who gave her dirty looks and kept looking, checking behind shelves and in corners. “Pru, get over here, I brought you something!”
Overhead, Leffi heard what sounded like a tower of books falling on the second floor. A few moments later, a nelfkin woman came scuttling down the stairs to the main floor, her expression showing alarm. She glared at Leffi and put her hands on her hips.
“This is a library!” she hissed, keeping her voice to an angered whisper. “When will you ever learn!”
“Yeah, Pru, I know,” Leffi agreed, though she didn't bother whispering. She patted the Librarian on the head, which earned her a glare from her friend. “I brought you the scrolls I promised! Wait until you get a look at these, they're incredible. They cost a lot of money too. Good thing the Library pays for these things because I sure couldn't afford to do it myself. These cost us 300 gold pieces!”
Prudence's brown eyes grew wide with horror. “Leffi, that's two months worth of your stipend! You're not supposed to spend so much on new pieces!”
The Librarian's words fell on deaf ears because Leffi was already rolling out her new acquisitions on an empty table. The scrolls were very old and fragile, clearly from a bygone era, and the language was hard for even Leffi to completely understand.
“Aren't they beautiful?” the scholar asked with a sigh and she ran one finger along the delicate ink lettering. “I believe that it's a story of Skye and Terra. This could be the oldest one we've ever found. These scrolls absolutely had to be in the Library.”
Reluctantly, Prudence examined the scrolls and couldn't help but gasp at their quality. Leffi really had found a gem this time. “They're amazing. But do try to be a little quieter, there are people trying to study.”
“As you say, Pru,” Leffi agreed with an easy smile. They both knew she wouldn't remember to keep the volume down, but Prudence felt it was her duty as the Librarian to at least give it a try, so Leffi humored her.
Prudence was one of Leffi's oldest friends. They had studied together as children, and after Prudence was appointed as the Librarian, Leffi's adventuring became funded by the Library itself. Leffi had recovered many of the Library's most valuable assets in her travels and Prudence, while a stickler for rules, recognized that Leffi was irreplaceable.
Leffi and Prudence were as different as two people could be. The nelfkin was barely four feet tall, compared to Leffi's impressive height of five feet and nine inches. Prudence had straight black hair and caramel colored skin, where Leffi had a mass of tangled red curls piled high on her head and a seemingly perpetual farmer's tan. Even in dress, they were different. Leffi wore cotton trousers and a long, faded blue blouse that she never tucked in. Prudence preferred a tidy and practical black smock with a sensible blue trim.
In fairness, Leffi stood out among nelfkins and elves. She owed her height and red hair to her human heritage, as well as her poor eyesight that necessitated the pair of gold-rimmed glasses she always wore.
“So, what's the news of the realm?” asked Prudence as she rolled the scrolls back up and hefted them in her arms. “I've heard some troubling rumors about monsters ransacking small villages.”
Leffi followed Prudence back to the desk, where the nelfkin stashed the scrolls among the other items waiting to be properly filed. “Monsters, yes. Gruesome things, really, and there have been reported sightings in a number of places. A few large attacks. I met a cleric who called them 'corrupted,' whatever that means. Some people are saying it's a curse from the gods, but I think that's a bit silly.”
“Displeasing the gods can be catastrophic.” Prudence gave Leffi a look, one that she often gave her friend when she thought Leffi was being too flippant or disrespectful. The Librarian began stacking tomes on a small cart. “It is wise to always speak of them with reverence, especially here in the house of our Lord Skye.”
Privately, Leffi figured that if Skye didn't care for how flippant she was, he would have done something about it long before now. She was hardly his most devoted follower, even if she had just recovered those scrolls. She did not, for instance, attend to her prayers each morning like her fellow scholars, and she did not ask for his guidance. The truth was, Leffi didn't like the idea of answering to anyone, not even a god.
Now Prudence was pushing the cart through the main room and Leffi trailed after her as she continued her report. “As best I could tell, the corrupted are like wild beasts. Someone even told me that they were wild beasts, once, and that something changed them. I think that's where the name comes from. I didn't meet any of them myself, luckily, but people say they are mindless, driven only by a need for destruction. It might be something of concern to the Library, if they continue to spread.”
Her friend pushed the cart down an aisle of shelves. Prudence gathered a few books off the cart and then set about climbing a rolling ladder attached to the shelf in order to shelve the books in their proper place. This despite the fact that Leffi could have reached the shelf for her without using the ladder. Prudence was quite stubborn about managing her job without assistance, though her height made it somewhat difficult. All nelfkins who worked in the Library took the job seriously and would not allow their elf companions to do their work for them. Leffi had long since stopped offering, as Prudence would sometimes become offended by it.
In fairness, the nelfkins were very good at their work. Even though their height necessitated the rolling ladders installed on every shelf, they were quick and efficient and hardly anything in the Library was ever out of place. Prudence managed the entire Library herself, but she had a number of nelfkins working below her. Shelving usually fell to them, but Prudence often did the work herself. She liked to see things done right.
“Anyway, I couldn't tell you why it's happen – Ouch!” Leffi stopped mid-sentence, as a book from the shelf Prudence was working on had fallen and hit her squarely on the head. “In the name of Skye, that hurt!”
Prudence did not look surprised as Leffi handed the book back to her. “You have very bad luck, Leffita. It's a wonder you're not dead yet, truly.”
“Don't use my full name, it makes you sound like my mother,” Leffi huffed. It was true, however. Since she was a young girl, her luck had been terrible. Some people thought she was clumsy, because she often bumped into furniture or tripped in holes, but Leffi knew it was her bad luck. Her tea went cold before she could drink it, and her mail often got lost, and if she kept money in her pockets, it would disappear before she could spend it.
“You should pray to Jill for forgiveness,” Prudence told her, not for the first time.
Leffi waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, that's silly. I'm sure she hasn't cursed me. I was a little kid when that happened anyway, how could she stay mad at me?”
She was referring to an incident that had occurred when she was twelve. Having always been fond of the nelfkins she studied and worked with, especially Pru, she had once attended a prayer circle for the goddess Jilna, patron of nelfkins and also the goddess of luck. The prayer circle had involved candles and Leffi had, quite by accident, set the effigy of Jilna, a beautiful handmade doll, on fire. Ever since, her luck had been miserable, but she was certain the two things were unrelated.
It was Leffi's belief that the gods did not take so active a role as many people believed. After all, sightings of them were few and far between. Who knew how many of those sightings were true? Leffi had certainly never seen a god, and she worked in the Library of Skye.
On the other hand, she had never tried praying for Jilna's forgiveness. She wasn't going to, either, mostly because she was stubborn and didn't like to do what people told her to do. If that meant she had to live with a bit of bad luck, she was okay with it. Bad luck wasn't the worst problem to have, anyway. Nothing truly horrible had ever happened to her.
“How long will you be staying?” Prudence asked as she pushed the cart out of the aisle and down a few shelves to another. She worked quickly, and had already made a sizable dent in the contents of the cart. “You should come to dinner this evening.”
“Sure,” Leffi agreed. She didn't need much prompting to accept such an invite. Prudence had a large family that lived together in a traditional nelfkin home, large and full of rooms so that the whole family could stay together instead of moving out into their own houses. Most nelfkins preferred the communal lifestyle this offered, even Prudence, who was a bit of a loner for a nelfkin. “I'll probably leave tomorrow evening. I've got a lead on a spell book that the elders will be thrilled with.”
They continued to chat, with Leffi standing by uselessly while Prudence worked. Leffi had never been much bothered by this, as she didn't have a head for organizing like Prudence did. She was a traveling scholar, and not a librarian, for a good reason. Prudence probably would not have allowed her to help to begin with, as Leffi never put books in quite the right place.
When she'd emptied her cart, Prudence said she needed to go back to the second floor and clean up the mess she'd made earlier. Leffi calling for her had surprised her and caused her to knock down an entire row of books from a tall shelf. The second floor was not Leffi's favorite – kind of gave her the chills – but she didn't complain about it. Pru's company after so long on the road was worth braving the second floor.
“What a mess,” Prudence lamented as she began to gather up the books that had fallen to the floor. “It's your bad luck rubbing off on me. You really should pray for forgiveness. Ah, these here were shelved in the wrong place to begin with! They belong downstairs. Wait for me here, I'll take them down and come right back.”
“Okay,” Leffi agreed, distracted, for she had found a book in the mess that caught her eye. For several minutes, she remained engrossed in the volume, a history of dwarvish culture. She'd met a few dwarves in her travels and found them to be an exceedingly interesting people. Their craftsmanship was unparalleled. Leffi pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose as she pondered the tome.
She heard light footsteps approach and smiled, thinking it was Prudence back. “Pru, have you seen this book, it's fantastic! Someone has drawn these incredible illustrations of Dwarven crafts and they're quite detailed! I may have to borrow it.”
However, when Leffi turned around, she realized it was not Prudence at all who had stepped into the aisle, but a young boy she did not recognize. He was watching her with an amused smile on his face. Leffi slowly closed the book and put it aside.
“You're not Prudence,” she said.
“No,” the boy agreed, “I'm not.”
He looked very young, but he was not one of the scholar children. Leffi knew most elves in the city, so it irked her that she did not know who this boy was. He had an odd appearance. His skin was tan, contrasting with his shockingly white hair. His eyes were blue, even bluer than Leffi's own, reminding her of the bright sky outside.
“Who are you then and what are you doing here?” she asked, feeling disconcerted. Something wasn't quite right about this boy.
“Well,” said the boy, “this is my house, you know.”
Leffi stared at him for a long moment while she puzzled over what, exactly, he meant by that. This wasn't a house at all, after all, it was the Library of Skye.
Her eyes widened when it finally clicked. “Oh, hell. You're not... him?”
His smile widened. “Skye? Yes, I am.”
“No you're not. Don't mess with me.” Leffi's common sense was struggling to catch up with her mouth. There was no way Lord Skye was actually standing here, in the flesh, talking to her of all people. Crap, she hadn't made an offering to him in... well, years. The last time she'd said a prayer to him had been when she was taking her exams. “You can't be.”
“Can't I?” he asked. “I rather think that I can be.”
“Why do you look like a little kid?” She asked the question and then immediately wanted to kick herself. Everyone knew that Skye liked to appear as a child. “Rather, if you're a god, why would you look like a little kid? Shouldn't you be, like, an old man with a beard? You're the father of all creation.”
“If you had a choice,” said Skye, “between looking like an old man and looking like a young boy, which would you choose?”
Leffi giggled, or rather, gave a little laugh that burst out of her with a snort at the end, but she preferred to think of it as a giggle.
“Suppose I would choose the latter,” she agreed. “Though I can't say I've ever thought about it before.”
“I've had a lot of time to think about it,” Skye replied cheerfully. “Now, since we're past the introductions...”
“But we aren't,” Leffi interrupted, puzzled. “I haven't introduced myself at all.”
The young boy who was apparently a god arched an eyebrow at her. “Come now, you think I need introduced to one of my favorite children? Leffi, I've known you for a very long time, though you have not known me.”
“Weird,” said Leffi. “You know my name.”
“Of course I do,” Skye replied, sounding a little impatient now. “Listen, we need to have a little chat. You can't stay here at the Library. It isn't safe.”
“I'm leaving tomorrow evening,” said Leffi with a frown. “And what do you mean, it isn't safe?”
“No, that won't do,” he replied, shaking his head. “I think you'll need to leave right away, actually. If you don't, you're going to bring trouble to those who live here. The dark forces gathering will be drawn to you and wreak havoc on everything in their path to reach you. You might have enough time to pack supplies but I wouldn't stay any longer than that.”
Now Leffi was truly flummoxed. Dark forces? Was he talking about the corrupted monsters that had been attacking others in the realm as of late? She couldn't see why such things would be drawn to her. “You can't be serious. I just got back, I'd like a night's sleep and a hot meal, and I have friends to visit.”
Something flashed in his eyes, like a lightning bolt lighting up a stormy sky. It made Leffi take a step back from him in alarm.
“Listen carefully,” he said in a low, serious tone. “I am Skye, father of creation and patron god of elves. I have come here to give you an important message. Since you were born, and even before then, I have watched over you. I chose you long ago for a champion among mortals. You are one of six. The other five were chosen by my beloved wife and our sons and daughters. So, you're special and I need you to take care of something for me.”
“I must be dreaming,” Leffi decided. “This can't be real.”
“It is so tiresome when mortals react this way,” said Skye, with a deep sigh. He stuck a hand in his pocket and drew something out, which he held up for her to see. “Look, here's a gift for you. It will help you on your quest. It is called the Codex Crystal. I made it myself, just for you.”
It was a twinkling blue gemstone set in silver and hung on a delicate chain. Leffi stared at it in awe. The crystal's cerulean hue was truly beautiful and she found she could hardly look away from it.
“There, now you're listening,” said the god. “Take this and leave the city. Pick a direction and start walking, it doesn't matter where you go. You will meet with another soon, and from there you will collect the other four. Do not lose the Codex, under any circumstances.”
“What does it do?” Leffi asked, mesmerized.
“That is for me to know and for you to find out,” said Skye, grinning. “You will like it, I promise.”
“Well, that's not very helpful,” Leffi said, but she reached out and took the crystal from him. She hesitated only a moment before she hung it around her neck. The crystal rested comfortably against her skin. It felt as though it belonged there, like she'd just reclaimed a part of herself that had been missing. Her fingers traced the silver setting, marveling at its quality.
“Do as I say,” said Skye, “and you will be rewarded.”
“Come on, old man, that's really not enough information,” Leffi said but when she looked up from the Codex Crystal, she found that she was once again alone in the aisle. There was not a trace of the boy who'd given her the necklace. She stood there, utterly perplexed, still touching the crystal she was wearing.
A moment later, Prudence reappeared.
“Sorry, I had to find a scroll for someone,” said the Librarian. She smiled and motioned to Leffi's new adornment. “What a lovely necklace! Where did you find that?”
Leffi stared at her, then looked down at the crystal again. Prudence could see it, and so that meant it was real and Leffi hadn't just hallucinated a meeting with Lord Skye. If it hadn't been a hallucination, that meant she'd just been given instructions by a god, who deigned to come to her in person just to do so.
“Pru,” she said slowly. “I'm sorry but I'm going to miss dinner tonight. Something's come up. I'm going to have to leave right away.”
~END
