98th Specific TC Addition: The Library

[gamemaker kelsier]

T H E   L I B R A R Y

This year, there is a temporary new addition to the training centre. On the ground floor of the building, tributes can now find a large library. Stepping through the entrance, you will feel transported to another time as the Rococco architecture in the room does not fit in with the modern build of the centre. The room has three levels and all can be seen from where you stand at the entrance. Spiral staircases stand in each corner in order to reach the balcony levels that run around the edges of the room and there are rails above every bookshelf so that large wooden ladders can be pushed along to reach even the highest of shelves.

Long, wooden reading desks that are separated with wooden barriers for study and are outfitted with small reading lamps can be found in rows on the first level. 

This library has been filled with selected folk tales, fantasy novels and stories from as many different periods in time and backgrounds that could be gathered. All of these stories have been Council approved, or heavily censored to make the cut. Of course you’ll find a collection of Kelsier’s novels already open to read on various lecterns throughout.

Discovered Fables: 3/?

[gamemaker kelsier]

Congratulations, due to the many hands pulling books off the shelves, a fable will be discovered from behind other books by the next tribute to post in the library.

T H E   K I N G ' S   C H A M P I O N

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom nestled deeply in the woods. The people of the kingdom were hard workers and of a powerful stock. There were rumours through the lands that they were descended from an old tribe known for their prowess in battle and as such, they were often left alone.

Still, it was known by the other kingdoms nearby that In times of danger, all one had to do was send for the kingdom and the banner of their fair ruler would appear against the horizon. King Sila was known for his fairness and even more for the bravery of the men and woman who marched with him. The kingdom thrived.

One day the king rose to find that his appearance in the mirror had changed. Many years of happiness and prosperity had passed in what felt like the blink of an eye. He knew that one day soon, he’d no longer be able to lead his soldiers into battle and his children were too young to do it for him.

The king decided to hold a tournament amongst his knights to find a champion. This champion would become his proxy, so that when he found he was no longer strong enough to lift a sword, this champion could lead the charge instead.

Everyone in the kingdom came to witness the spectacle. Tents were erected and food and drink flowed freely as people made up cheers and songs for the knights in their shining armour.

Though there were many that were popular among them, most believed that a knight called Zina would win the day.

Zina Zina
Quick and lean-a
She’ll take care
Of king and queen-a

Then a hush came over the crowd as out from the barracks came a young man with a sword strapped around his waist. He looked dull and boring in brown leather armour beside the King’s knights but no one knew what to make of him. He looked at everything gathered there in a steady, quiet way, in a way that dared them to jeer at him.

The king raised a hand and the world went silent.

“Boy, what is your name,” he asked gently.

“Atlas, your majesty, son of Gravven, who-“

“Served me well for sixteen years before he was felled at the Battle of Willows, yes, I remember,” the king said. Then he appeared to be lost in thought for a moment as he regarded Atlas. “Your father was a good man, Atlas, if he was with us today he would also be stood here in front of me, amongst the best of my men. You may fight in his stead.”

The tournament began then. Stories are still told of it, rumours spread far of the prowess of the knights of the kingdom by the merchants who happened to be passing through. It lasted two weeks and became a sort of festival. Combat went on during the day and then at night, there was feasting. All of the knights would drink and make merry together despite the contest. In the end, they were brothers and sisters in arms.

They welcomed Atlas into their fold like a long lost son and shared stories of his father with him. There wasn’t a man or woman amongst them who didn’t have a kind word to say of him or a tale of a time he had helped them. As they spoke with Atlas and watched him fight, they saw their old comrade in him more and more. Perhaps Gravven had been an even better father than a knight.

As the days went on, competitors were knocked out of the tournament until one late summer afternoon, only two of them were left. Atlas stood opposite of Zina with blood dripping down his arm but Zina was injured too, there was a cut above her eye.

They fought long and hard, neither seeming to hold the upper hand for long before relinquishing it to the other. In fact they say that of all of the battles that fortnight, Atlas and Zina’s was the longest and hardest fought.

Still, all things that begin must end.

They circled each other slowly, eyes locked on the other. The crowd held its breath, you could have heard a pin drop. It seemed as if the two might remain locked in battle for the rest of time but it was all over in the next breath.

Zina’s sword went sailing through the air and embedded itself in the ground at the good king’s feet. Atlas’ blade stilled at the base of her skull, it’s razor sharp edge moments from slipping through her flesh.

“I yield,” she said, palms pressed to the ground to show peace.

And on that day, Atlas became the King’s champion.

[gamemaker kelsier]

Congratulations, due to the many hands pulling books off the shelves, another fable will be discovered open on a lectern by the next tribute to post in the library.

T H E   G R E A T   T O W E R

In a kingdom far from here and a long time ago, a king built a tower at the edge of his lands. This wasn’t just any old tower though, it was a tower to study a phenomenon known as magic.

Older even than the stones we stand on, magic was an ancient and powerful thing that filled the world as naturally as the air we breathe. Back then, before the discovery of the power of steam and water, magic was what drove us forward as a race.

Even as those who could practice it became few, the need for it only grew.

The good king recognised this and built the tower to be a place of education and learning for the scholars and magic users in his land. Thus, the tower became known as the wizard’s tower, and it was from there our trouble began.

It is a rare thing, but sometimes in the quest to create a better life for all, a wrong turn can be taken. It is kinder to believe that no ill-intention was meant, but that isn’t always truth either. Some people are born to harness power for good, while some are born already consumed by it.

Whatever intention it was that brought us here, it matters not. For one night, long past the lanterns had been doused for the evening, there was a burst of light that spilled and shined out of the tower’s windows. Some said it was as if the sun had briefly touched his golden sandals down on the city, while others said they’d shut their eyes rather than bear it; they couldn’t describe it themselves.

Whatever had caused it, not much seemed to have changed for the people in the town. They went about their morning with their head’s down, cautious, but nothing seemed to come of it.

Life went on and it was good in the kingdom, under the watchful eye of the castle and the tower. New methods of growing food were developed, elixirs began to appear on market days and many illnesses that had plagued the kingdom over the years faded away as the wizards grew their power.

The people of the kingdom were grateful to those in the tower, their daily lives were spent less on survival and more on connection and leisure. Artists and scholars bloomed from milkmaids and labourers. There was a time of unprecedented growth in the knowledge of the kingdom’s people.

Then, one by one, the afflicted began to appear. Not all at once, it began with those closest to the tower, in rings of distance and one by one, they multiplied. At first, the poor things were quarantined, kept apart from everyone else in an effort to contain it.

Babs were torn from mother’s hips, wives were torn from husband’s lips and they were never seen or heard from again.

Such great sorrow, felt by so many. If only they could have known how fruitless it all was. From the moment the last brick of that tower had been laid, all of their futures had been set in stone.

[gamemaker kelsier]

Congratulations, due to the many hands pulling books off the shelves, another fable will be discovered in the middle of a stack of books on the third floor.

T H E   K I N G D O M   I N   T H E   S E A

There are many stories told about the strange happenings in Mermaid Bay and you would do well, young reader, to remember that there is a reason it was named such. Though it is not so common these days, there was a time once when those waters were teaming with more than fish!

I will tell you a tale now from long ago.

In the days of the old kingdom, there was another kingdom that lived along the coast in the bay. Even then, its city already beginning to sink into the sea. Its population had been dwindling for years, its ruling class having clung to their thrones for as long as they could before the salt water took those too.

They were a proud people and had been there for thousands of years, long before the kingdoms around them had even been dreamed of. They turned their noses up at the other kingdom’s offer of help time and time again. In turn, they had refused to come to the aid of the kingdoms around them too many times to count.

Eventually, the sea took what was left of the city and their monuments crumbled into the bay. The people had long dispersed, but for some. The proud queen and her most loyal retainers were left bereft outcasts. These misfits roamed for and wide to find a home for themselves but they found no hearth left to them on land. Too proud to beg at the feet of the old kingdom, they began to venture out to sea on vessels that could act as a means of travel but be their hearth as well.

Out on the water, survival relied on what they could catch with their nets but they were not always lucky with their haul. Starving and unwelcome wherever they turned, the people on those vessels became desperate. It wasn’t long before the merchant ships that travelled to the kingdom, fat with goods from far off lands, began to catch their eye.

Stories reached the coast eventually, of sunken ships and stolen goods, but at the time, little was done. It was a time of great growth and progress in the old kingdom and its people lived in such abundance that they barely noticed.

Thus, the queen of the kingdom on the shore became the queen of the seas instead. To her people, she was known as a fearsome and loyal ruler who cared deeply for her people but to the rest of the world, she became a vicious, murderous pirate.

In those days, the water in the bay was oft dark with the blood of those that fell victim. The memory of that ancient kingdom that had lived in the bay before was long gone, overtaken by the colony of pirates who roamed there.

It seemed as if there would be no more trade to distant lands as merchants began to avoid the route entirely. The old kingdom and more responded to it. Battles were fought on those waters, more blood was spilled in these deadly skirmishes and finally it was enough.

Something awoke beneath the surface, something that had been perhaps sleeping, or just so deep below the waters that they had become unconcerned with life above.

It didn’t matter, really.

The pirates were too skilled after so much time on the water and the other kingdoms retreated in favour of living another day.

The pirates celebrated for many days and held massive feasts after tying their vessels together out on the open water of the bay.

The ships floated there for three nights before a merchant ship passed by and saw that they were abandoned. After seven days, a vessel was dispatched from the old kingdom to search the ships. They found drinks half empty and the remains of their feasting rotten on the table. They found books open and instruments laid out on the deck. They found letters half written and shattered pottery on the floor but not a soul was found.

To this day, no one really knows what happened to them. We can only guess.

Their celebrating must have been too loud, they must not have noticed the churning in the water or the gentle laughter beyond the shadow cast by their many lanterns.

Then the singing started, a sound impossible to describe for there are none left alive who could tell us. All we have is a single diary entry written by a sailor who was born unable to hear at all.

As his story goes, both men and women alike leaned over the ship’s railings and slipped over the sides of the vessels all on their own. It was as if they moved as one, as if their very souls had been ensnared and bound. He watched, unable to stop any of them as one by one, they fell into the churning waters below. He ran to the sides to try and see what happened down below but his friends, his family, they were out of sight.

He waited for sometime, watching the surface for their return but none came, until finally, the water was calm once again. It had been far too long, he was about to turn away to weep but then a head rose out of the water.

She had skin, so pale it shone in the moonlight and hair so fair and so long that it pooled around her like spun silver. A hand rose out of the sea, delicate webbing connecting the maiden’s fingers together, and beckoned for him.

That is where the entry ends.

[gamemaker kelsier]

So many voices in the library, so many hands running along the spines of old books. The next tribute to post in the library will catch their fingers on a slim chapbook.

T H E   B O Y   A N D   T H E   S K Y   F L O W E R S

In another age, there was a boy who lived in a kingdom far from here. His father was a knight in the King’s Guard and his mother was a beautiful maiden from the deep woods north of the kingdom. It was said that the folk who lived there were long-lived and of regal stock. They were tall in stature and of fair face. It was rare for one of them to marry outside of their community, but there are special cases.

In this one, it was love, pure and simple.

In times of trouble, the two kingdoms would oft come to the other’s aid. It was during one of these times that the boy’s father and mother first met and fell in love. Though the two kingdoms were friendly with one another, a love like theirs was unorthodox at the time.

They chose to live apart from their peoples and built a home south of the two kingdoms, in a place long considered a meeting point of the gods and was therefore only used as a path through. For you see, flowers grew in abundance no matter the season outside of the forest’s limits and it seemed to exist in eternal spring.

There were whispers of course, of the spirits who watched over those woods and how they could bless you and curse you in the same breath. It was said that if one strayed too far off the path, there would be no return.

For Gravven and Ainora, it was simply a place where they could be together and live in peace.

And live in peace they did, though Gravven had his duties at the castle and Ainora had her’s in the Northern woods, they spent their spare moments and their nights together. Not long into their time together, they welcomed a baby and the baby they welcomed was Atlas.

Atlas was a strange child. He took after his mother in most aspects but for his father’s gentle eyes and hands. He spent much of his youth deep in the Southern woods with his mother and father but when he was old enough to be on his own, they would leave him for days at a time to attend to their duties.

It was during one of these times that Atlas found himself deeper in the forest than he’d ever been before. He felt no fear about it, in his pockets were food to eat and he wore a thick, wool cloak around his neck. Besides, he had been born and raised in those woods, for him there was nothing to fear.

He walked for many hours, until slowly, the sun began to set. Now, he’d never been so deep in the woods at night. In vain, he strained to hear the voice of his mother or his father, calling him for dinner, but he could hear nothing. Even the birds and the animals of the forest seemed to settle in for the night.

At first, he was nervous, as he had no light to guide his path. As the sun dipped below the horizon however, something strange began to happen. The forest floor began to glow at his feet as a flower that he had never noticed before began to glow.

The flowers were different from any other. Their petals were so thin that Atlas could almost see through them and he may not have even noticed them if it weren’t for the geometric faceting at their rounded base. Each petal tapered into two rounded tips and seemed to swallow the moonlight that fell on them. In the centre of each flower were two long pistils that made the sound of porcelain when they knocked against each other in the gentle breeze.

The light was more than enough to see by, as if the sky itself had become the forest floor. These strange flowers dotted the landscape like stars in the night and Atlas could see far ahead of him as if it were still only twilight.

When he turned to the right, the flowers darkened, when he turned to the left then the flowers seemed to grow brighter for him. It was, as if the forest itself was guiding him.

Atlas did not know the stories about the woods, nor did he carry the same fears that others in the kingdom did about them. He followed the way that the flowers made for him faithfully. After some time, he saw warm lights appear in the gloaming and heard his mother’s voice calling out his name.

He was home.