Yvette’s Tower

The dust billowed forth in thick, choking clouds. Curtains of spider silk swayed gently at the disturbance in the corridor. No one had been in this tower for centuries and the stagnant air pushed away from Yvette, as if it shunned the presence of the living. The sand that was everywhere seemed to absorb all sound, and it muffled even the light in the room. The Tower has been buried for over a hundred years, and lost to mankind for even longer. It was tipped in the earth, making the climb up the main tower stairs very interesting and some rooms were very inaccessible, being now overhead instead of upright. No natural light would ever find its way into this place, at least not in anyone’s lifetime. Yvette’s lantern cast long shadows into the main library ruins at the top of the stairs.

All of the books lay scattered about in piles at one end of the room from when the tower was cast into the earth. Shattered remains of the tables as shelves obstructed much of the room. One could note small remains of vials and other alchemy tools mixed in the heaps of wood and stone. The occasional bone or skull of a former resident jutted out of the rubble. Yvette noted that a good deal of the bones were mostly worn away, and she examined one closely to see the gnaw marks of a rodent. Looking now around the room again she noted more signs of the rodents, an she decided that it was indeed the rats that led her here. Silly that the vermin are so often dismissed as pests. She let out a sigh, which echoed throughout the tower in a frightening manner. It sounded like a breath of unholy life within the deep earth.

Looking at the huge pile of books she knew that there was years of research to do, and the sooner she started the better. Carefully she selected a table top from the pile, looking for one not too warped or broken. She found the proper supports to make a table in the unevenly tipped room. Then she began separating the books, digging through ages of lost tomes, journals, records and tales. Yvette wondered what lost arcane spells she would find here, and thought back on the folk lore of who was supposed to have lived during the time of this tower. The first of the Erudites, still full of the blood of Qeynos nobles and striving for the truth found in the great mathematics and weights of the arcane. They lived a life that symbolized a higher meaning than bloodshed and war. Living to prove the Barbarians far primitive and the nomadic ways of the other men inferior.

The founding fathers of the Academy for High Sorcery built a city on the premise that the pen was mightier than the sword, not to be used as one. The schools of thought that were built flourished in the ideas of a utopian race of humans who did not need war. That utopian race would never come about. As the fathers of Erudian science were laid to rest, the descendants grew a bit more like the men of the past. The need for military prowess became a popular topic of schooling. The ways of the arcane became as a lethal tool, honed like iron into steel by blacksmiths of thought. Even these founding fathers of Wizardry were respected as Erudites, being masters of the arcane and very exact in the arts. The mind became as the temples of worship to the High Wizards, and great works were written about this process. Yvette was busy categorizing these works in the buried tower.

She marveled at the quality of journals and accuracy of the maps. She read through the journal notes of one great thinker, the father of the Neo Invocation school of thought. His research would give birth to spells such as earthquake and the black energy storm, which are most commonly used to kill on a large scale, such as a town. Yvette doubted he meant for his work to be used as such, seeing his study of how the Gods killed was in attempt to prevent the city from sliding into the sea. She wondered what he would think if he knew what happened to his beautiful city. The she stopped and wondered how many had actually seen the future.

Would have the great thinkers of Erudite history have written the great arcane lore if they knew the future, even a glimpse? Now days the Academy was a human bakery, a cookie cutter assembly of Wizards accepting diplomas written without care of the individual students. The instructors of the arcane science came from the same molds as the students. They shared the same alphabet of spells and knowing the same histories. Perhaps if the great thinkers had known they would have written more. Giving more to be taught from generation to the next instead of leaving the greatest truths to be left buried in the sands. Perhaps they did try. Perhaps the truth is in this pile of books. Perhaps they just ran out of time, out of life.