[Short Story] Book Hoarding

Ah! The wonders that can be found between the covers of a book. Fiction or not, even the most trite drivel at least reveals something about the person who wrote.

And within those insights, a spark! Some are small so as to be easily extinguished with even a single sentence from another text. Others burn with an intensity such that the book doesn’t always survive.

Such a shame that most cultures that produce these wonders are so... small. My own people, the long lived True Dragons, prefer to depend on our own memories. But I clearly have advanced beyond them! After all, knowledge is power, so of course the most common receptacle of said knowledge would have power of their own.

My hoard, once of common gold and gems, now home to texts from across the world and even beyond! Though yeah, there are still things like gold and gems. People like to make their books fancy.

Anyway, as with most of my kind, the hoard empowers me! Rare books, secret books, books of forbidden knowledge! Even simple fairy tales, all funneling into my strength. The biggest flaw in this approach being that books tend to be more fragile than more elemental items like gold.

This was easily solved by such a well-read scholar as myself! Besides, as gold helped my brethren improve their strength, my books increase my magical might. So with runes, enchantments, and crafted wonders, my entire hoard now preserves all books within it.

“Hahaha hahaha!” Truly my knowledge is boundless and wisdom beyond mortal ken!

-----

Down in a military outpost, though most would more call it a small village, the guards cautiously glance up towards where the nearby mountain pierces the ever present cloud layer. It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally the wind would sound like some wild beast laughing.

Of course, this settlement wasn’t here for no reason and so someone was better informed than the regular guards out on the wall. That man looked up from his paperwork, dark circles under his eyes proving that such a “simple” position was anything but.

He dips his pen and pulls over a sheet of paper, which is clearly different from every page on his desk. The paper is a crisp even white, where all the others are at best a light tan along with gold leaf illumination along the edges and the sparkle of ruby dust show the worth. Admittedly, this extravagance isn’t purely for show, but rather craft value being poured into it to make the magic work. The man reads over the page.

[Observation Log

5738 years since arrival, Harpa 27 - I, the new observer, will now make my first notation. The subject has returned with a covered pallet. Covering appears to bear the mark of a trading company from the Dark Seas.

5738 ysa, Harpa 30 - Booms heard and one peasant believes to have seen a small flurry of white rain fall down. My personal retrieval of the observed white objects show it to be shredded paper.

5738 ysa, Soolmaanuthur 4 - Unprompted laughter

5738 ysa, Ylir 23 - Unprompted laughter

5739 ysa, Thorri 7 - Unprompted laughter

5739 ysa, Harpa 12 - Unprompted laughter

5739 ysa, Heyannir 2 - The subject has left

5739 ysa, Tveemaanuthur 17 - The subject was observed returning with moderate size boat, sans sails

5739 ysa, Tveemaanuthur 23 - Laughter, presumed to be prompted by the most recent return

...]

And it continues down the page much further than the page could physically contain. The man looks further and further down until he reaches the end. Then he pens in another entry.

[5752 ysa, Gormaanuthur 5 - Unprompted laughter]

The man waits for the ink to dry before pushing it back to the corner of his desk. Though soon he is forced to do the rare double entry.

[5752 ysa, Gormaanuthur 5 - Unprompted laughter, Subject seen fly away]

-----

The eternal search for knowledge! Ah, the air sings over my wings. The land speeds past underneath me and I head off to the north. My recent haul pointed to there being an enclave of monks up this way.

Hmm, now where did I need to go? Map, map, map, tell me where I am. Hmm, where did I put them map?

Oh! There it is! Why did I stick it under that scale? Whatever, nothing a use of mage hand can’t solve. Now let’s see where we need to go.

Ah! We’re going to need to cross the abyssal sea. Stupid name that, can’t believe they changed it. The Leviathans still hold sway there after all. Eh, I’ll grab a snack in there on the way. Can’t exactly go fishing on the return trip.

Oh! There’s a young Kun! Perfect! I’m glad the Leviathans and KunPeng don’t gain sapience until much later in life. It would be a shame for such delicious fish to not be on the menu. So few things are large enough to provide a proper meal without over fishing.

Meal secured, time begins to pass as there isn’t much to see in the sea. Heh, see sea. Though yeah, that isn’t true. If anything, the sea has even more to see in it than on land. After all, sea creatures can make use of the full area available to them. It’s just, well, they don’t have books!

Oh! Continent! Is it the right one? Let’s check the map again.

-----

A woman rushed into a marble building that doesn’t match anything else in the city. Not only are most buildings made of wood, but even the ones made of stone use local granite. There are a bunch of desks manned by receptionists, but the woman ignores them and runs towards a set of stairs in the back.

A couple of the people hanging out in the place move to stop her, at least until they recognize her. Then they go back to checking the boards for something to do or standing in line to talk to the receptionists.

Up the stairs and down a hall, the woman bursts into a large crowded office. “Sir! Emergency sir!”

A man looks up from his paperwork and raises an eyebrow, “How much of an emergency?”

The woman grimaces, “Mithril if we’re lucky.”

The man sighs, “We don’t even have someone who could handle a mithril task. At best we have some parties that would qualify for a solo gold task.”

The woman shakes her head, “I mean that the danger is mithril, not that the task would be mithril. There is no task we could make. A dragon just flew in from the sea carrying a half eaten fish. And uh, the fish sort of looked like, well, a Kun. Only a young one, though!”

The man behind the desk blinks, “So, why aren’t we dead?”

The woman shrugs, “It just flew by and continued north.”

The man shakes his head, “We’re in a trade city! Gold flows through here like blood through a person’s heart. Why wouldn’t the dragon attack?”

The woman had no answer for this.

-----

That should be the mountain I’m looking for! Rare to have a lone mountain. Though it looks like in the past, this was a mountain range. Wonder why someone decided to level the other mountains? Oh! Maybe the monks will have a history book on the subject! They are living on the mountain after all.

And speaking of monks, that must be them there! Humans are always so easy to find. They always seem to be running around like an ant nest that has been overturned.

“Humans! I desire knowledge! Offer up to me your books. I give you time to make copies, but I require either the original or at least the oldest copy you have!”

Heh, look at them fall to the ground. Can’t even handle when I’m a little loud. Now where to wait? A month should be enough as they seem to have the right magic for such things.

Ah! Over there I see a canyon. I bet letting a leg hang off down into the canyon would feel nice. And there seems to be a bunch of snacks! A few wooly mammoths will let me preserve what’s left of the Kun.

Now, which book should I reread? Hmm, I’m feeling like some magic theory, maybe something to do with spatial magic. What do I have on me? Hmm, the treaty on blink spell variants through the ages sounds good.

-----

“What about our central text?! We can’t give it up. The tome contains our founder’s Intent. None of our techniques or spells can copy that!”

A harried looking monk sighs, “And why do you think that damn dragon specified wanting the originals? We can’t not give our texts to them.”

Another monk, with dark circles under their eyes shrugs, “Copy what can be copied. Our founder would be disappointed in us for valuing a thing over our own lives. Things are transient and if we can’t recover from losing these books? Have we really followed his teachings? For all that is good! We’re even being allowed to copy down the text. Have you so little faith in our founder’s teachings that you think without his direct intent we can’t make a comeback?”

All around the room monks stop what they are doing for a moment to think on this. Maybe they had been relying on their founder’s Intent over their teachings?

-----

Oh! They’re already finished. I thought they might have put more effort in trying to record some of those Intent infused books or maybe try and hide them? Whatever, I should probably leave anyway, the wooly mammoths need time to recover their population.

Now, how are they planning to pack them up? Oh, they’re using mammoth leather. That makes sense. Stuff should be properly weatherproof and keep the temperature even. Would suck for the books to be damaged by rapid changes in temperature.

Sure, I’m going to use my magic to preserve the books anyway, but it is the thought that counts. Oh! And they’re building a frame of wood. Quite handy of them!

Okay, they’re done, time to go over there and pick the package up. And they’re running away from it, good! Gets annoying if I have to be careful about grabbing something. Well, magic works just fine, but sometimes the books don’t like that.

And got it! Time to head back home and read through them all. I wonder how many new books I’ll be able to add to my hoard? Maybe they’ll even have some older editions of my more recent books. Monks tend to keep those sorts of things.

Now where did that ocean go?

-----

A certain woman bursts into the man’s office once again. “The dragon flew back over! This time it was carrying some sort of bundle? Looked to be made of mammoth hide? Oh, and not as in the raw hide of a mammoth it hunted. Rather, mammoth furs stitched together, though it isn’t like we can get close enough to confirm.”

The man sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose, “We just finished cleaning up all the chaos. Maybe things won’t be that hard this time around? After all, it was just through recently and this time it is presumably leaving after having done whatever it intended to do.”

It was not easier.

-----

[5752 ysa, Ylir 27 - Subject returned with a package covered in mammoth furs.]

The man slides the paper away. He wasn’t certain how to feel, even after all this time. He always slept so much easier when the literal Dragon wasn’t around. You know, like any sane person. Still, it wasn’t exactly like he was worry free when it wasn’t around. After all, when would it return? What if something with a grudge came around to cause trouble? What would it mean if the Dragon didn’t return?

-----

Fantastic! Seems the founder of that group came from the black sand desert. Don’t know why he bothered traversing such a distance to settle in a snowy desert. You’d think he would have been adapted to the heat.

And these insights into the cold, ice, and snow! You can tell they were achieved through the lense of someone from a hot area. Shame that whoever this was didn’t gain enlightenment into the concept of temperature as a whole. Still, these contain enough of a spark to be worthy of my main hoard.

Now, where did I put those books from that guy’s original sect? I’m sure I can gain some insights of my own if I compare the two.