Never Again by Bollorith
There is no preface, no introduction, or no contents page. There is only the sorrow that I write into these pages in painful detail of my failure. As a warden of knowledge, I have failed to protect the Vale from darkness, but as they say, darkness eventually comes. I have failed as a companion, as a librarian, and as a warden of knowledge in this now ancient library. When Naoki was first found, I was a wyrmling, and as it grew, so did I. The more community members joined, the more knowledge was stored on these shelves, and the more I grew. I loved the people, I loved their unique perspective and stories. How they described similar scenery in millions of different ways, how they found new ways to write literature, and how they shaped the world around them. I was a bystander to all this, sharing knowledge is riddles so their brains could ponder and decode it when the time was right. After reaching adulthood, I allowed for interns and they were paid rather handsomely. For exchange of their time and labor, they would receive power through knowledge or be a bystander in the history of the past. This is how I met a fair-skinned human named [[The lich venessa| Venessa]] Oceandream, a student in arcane with no arcane talents beyond cantrips. Venessa was naive to the world, especially to that of the opposite sex. She fell deeply in love with a man; she never told me his name, but only referred to him as "The One". She believed The One was her soulmate, her true love, and despite watching attempts no one else could capture her desire. Through her internship and eventually being hired as an assistant, Venessa went from fragile mage to ranking top in her class. When she first joined, a simple cantrip such as Light would leave her breathless, but through time's maturing nature, she mastered nearly all schools of magic. This, coupled with her mastery of several Metamagics, made her quite the mage, but her hunger for knowledge was never satisfied. She could never be whole without The One.
I warned her that this hunger could be no more than lust; even dragons can comprehend those strong emotions. She never wavered from this thought of true love; she held onto it even if it made her heartache. The One either never paid her any mind, was leading her on, or was using her for sex. No one truly knew, and Venessa never shared. Now that context is done, I will explain the tragedy and how I failed. One night, I was invited to a community celebration of the whole town, everyone would be there. Hesitant, I declined at first; there was much to write and organize each day about world events. Through great persuasion, I was pulled by the idea that I could write this celebration down into the history books of the Vale, and so I locked the doors to the library and left. I had plenty of safeguards, elementals, oozes of my own blood, and other traps that were only active when the library was closed. Not a soul but my own had known about this, and why would they? The library is public, inviting to all. I even had the library house those orphaned or homeless from time to time, they never noticed either, but her. Venessa broke the magical lock, got through my traps by using the hired thieves guild as shields. At least five died, six were injured, and eventually thrown in jail for breaking. Venessa was after the one place she was forbidden to go and had found what she wanted, what I didn't want anyone to know about. The Necronomicon: A book of mind-shattering spells for material plane-bound individuals. My parents were the original wardens of this evil, protecting it from all within the Vale. This book comes from another reality entirely. It is from the Void, a reality where only powerful beings plot to snuff out the creations of [[Bahamut, The Creator]] and Tiamats. The battle between Bahamut and Tiamat was because of this Void; it shattered Tiamat's mind, and she had to be sealed away into the lower planes. In this madness, she created a book and sent it to the material plane through a rift.
This book was found by the Magis of Seven, ancient dragons tasked with protecting the world from multiversal threats, and eventually, I was tasked with the task of protection. To retrieve the book, you have to break several powerful seals and nearly expend all of the weave from your body if you aren't a warden. Venessa used necromancy to cheat this system by draining the life of others so she could continue the casting. Once broken, she drained another who barely survived and cast a teleportation scroll, evident by the scroll on the ground once I returned. Heartbroken, outraged, and confused, I irrationally blamed the town. Why else would they invite me out? Who had it? Who had my book? The look of fear in their eyes was devastating, but there was no time for games. Kicking everyone out of the library, I tasked several adventurers to find whoever stole my book while I teleported the library away. No more library for the public, my trust was broken. After completing the teleportation, I went out to the Vale, searching high and low for the book. I polymorphed, read through people's minds, and joined shadow guilds as fake personas. I could not find this person. How could they vanish from existence like that? Then the day came when they made themselves known by erasing a nation from the map. An undead wizard, a powerful necromancer who had spells beyond what most can imagine. Being so strong due to their connection with the Void, they could wish an entire Nation to become zombies without any consequences. They were no longer bound to the laws of physics, laws of the weave, or any law of our world. With this release of dark power came plagues, curses, and the Void was able to have greater access to our world. Warlock cults began to increase, Void being shattered minds of individuals, and war came. The Rune Wars, a war over powerful magic items that had been released into the world thanks to the Void. Obtaining all pieces would allow their existence to touch our own.
A single touch and we would no longer exist, planes would merge, life would cease to exist, and it was my fault. I failed to do my job as a Warden, giving in to the pleasures of my quest for knowledge. I had failed everyone, including Venessa, who I knew had stolen the book but refused to accept reality. In shame, I tasked those same adventurers with killing Venessa and returning the book. By the time their job was complete, I had already sealed myself into the library and starved myself to death. Why did I deserve to eat? Why did I deserve to drink? To breathe cris,p clean air, below the ground was where I stay. To see sunlight, hear birds chirping, or people bonding. I deserved nothing but a slow, agonizing, painful death as I felt myself getting weaker and weaker. In my dying days as punishment, for death was something I was undeserving of, I attached my soul to the library itself. Encasing my skeleton in a large emerald, I manipulated my territory to know who was coming in or out. I became violent for the next hundred years toward anyone who came close. I allowed my magic to create new emerald mutations in the wildlife to warn off travelers. I killed anyone foolish enough to come inside, except for those adventurers whom I tasked. I took the book and encased it in my emerald prison, made fake copies that would explode upon opening and kill the thief with an upcasted draconic fireball. I didn't allow anyone to live but this group of travelers named Color Theory arrived. They had found my location through rumors; they touched nothing and cared deeply about the library. Any traps activated, any challenges they faced, they worked together through with kindness. I had attempted to shatter their mind multiple times, but through companionship, they always brought each other back.
They spent two weeks as I tried to kill them each day, used illusion magic to create dead-ends, cast powerful spells, and nothing worked. Eventually, they found my coffin and we slowly became friends... (edited)after I tried to attack them and make their souls forever stuck in the library. For the first time in hundreds of years, I painted a dream, what if they were my interns? What if this never happened? Why, why couldn't I accept this reality? Through Color Theory, I communicated my trauma and grew, but eventually, all things must cease. Red had mysteriously died I learned from a thief's mind. The others tried their best to still be around, but I don't remember what happened. Certain memories have begun to fade, eroded by time, and I cannot fix them. Eventually, my soul will no longer burn as brightly, and I will become a mindless ghost. I will never truly die, which is what I deserve in the end. If there is a lesson in this, it's up to you to decide what it is. I cannot see one because I refuse to forgive myself.