The Librariers

Such a very rought draft, but I figured what the hell...it's amazing what a random typo can inspire.  Now I have this whole world and story swirling around my head.

The Librariers

By Heathyr Fields Ford
Creation notes: Inspired by a typo in my facebook post on the morning of 29 August 2009.

Prologue
In 5870, the end of the Fifth Age came with a bang. Literally. The demarcation between Ages was always something of debate, giving rise to scholarly battles of pen and vellum across the continent of Antiola. Rapier wit and sharpened stakes of metaphor struck against the stone ramparts of stubborn opinion and the dungeons of simile. The Scholar Battles, as they were jokingly called in taverns and castles alike, were typical--vitriolic, passionate, and mind-numbingly boring. No one sane cared if the Fourth Age started in 5102 or 5104 or if the Third Age’s entire existence was under debate. They cared about food and drink, about sex and love, about living and possibly thriving.

Perhaps tired of such idiocy, or perhaps just being a crazed madman of aggressively intelligent proportions, Barl the Chief Scholastic Alchemist solved the problem of when the Fifth Age would start by blowing up the Library of Paraxandretta. The size of a small city, the Library held the history of Antiola, secrets to magicks long forgotten, and countless important documents, all meticulously catalogued and cross-referenced by the Monastic Order of Preservation and Education. Known officially as the Order, and not-so affectionately as the Mopers, the monks lived up to their nickname by bemoaning the general public’s lack of regard for books and took inordinate pleasure in rapping the knuckles of errant scholar initiates who did not handle a scroll with the level of respect it deserved.

Several Mopers lost their lives in the Library explosion. Mourning was minimal.

Barl overestimated the power of his concoction, whatever it was, and laid waste not just to the Library, but to the entire city of Paraxandretta, its million denizens, the only School of Alchemy and Science in the world, and himself. No one could come within a ten leagues of Paraxandretta as the air turned acrid and burned the chest of any who dared breathe. Numerous looters and treasure-seekers died before this was discovered.

The loss of the Library was unequivocally declared the end of the Fourth Age and the beginning of the Fifth: the Age of Searching.

Several dozen Monks were, at any given time, abroad in the world, seeking new volumes to add to the expanse of Paraxandretta. Their goal was to gather the world’s knowledge entirely in one place, organize it all, and know everything. Barl fucked that up royally, and his name became blasphemy, but what he couldn’t destroy was the Mopers’ beliefs. And what he hadn’t taken into consideration was their remarkable adaptability. The remaining Mopers gathered together in a secret conclave on the first anniversary of Barl’s Folly. They formulated a plan and went back into the world. On the tenth anniversary of Barl’s Folly, they gathered again, this time sequestered with numerous royals from the small countries that dotted the continent’s landscape.

The Accords of Paraxandretta (called such despite being held in Vanot’s capital city of Calvern, quite possibly because Paraxandretta sounded cooler than Calvern) were struck and a militant arm of MOPE was formed. Sanctioned by all royalty across Antiola, the Protectors of Knowledge spread across the lands, seeking out small libraries and privately held collections and offering themselves up as guardians.

Five hundred years after the destruction, rumors arose that Paraxandretta’s air was clearing. It was only a matter of time before looters could sift through the rubble of the greatest repository of mankind’s knowledge. The last half-millenium had been hard on Antiola’s people. Much was forgotten. Much was lost. And the world suffered horribly. Would they find what they needed at Paraxandretta?

The Order and its Protectors were determined to stop that from happening.