Diaman's DnD Diary

Chapter 2: The Old Man And My Research

The house was huge. There were three floors and a ladder to the attic. Most of the rooms on the third floor were bedrooms. The left wing, where my room was situated at, seemed to have been a servants' quarters but completely uninhabited, right wing had three major bedrooms and only one of them seemed to have had an owner but the owner himself was nowhere in sight, yet.

The second floor and first floor wings where full of necessary rooms like a kitchen, a bath, store rooms, a study, a dining room... But the main part of the house... There was a library. A library even bigger than the one in the Academy and the librarians there always prided themselves in the fact that theirs' was the third biggest library in the kingdom. With a circle structure of the whole thing, it stretched throughout all the three floors, connected by wooden circular stairs on four sides, richly engraved with heads, tails and paws of mythical creatures and gods.

I headed towards the nearest section, at once. "Philosophy". I looked through the titles and could see that they were books in all sorts of languages, some of the books I'd managed to recognize, I'd only ever heard of, due to them being extremely rare. I browsed through the various sections and finally, I found myself in front of the section "Spiritual Beings". Second floor on the Western side. I pulled out a few of the books and sat to a nearby table.

I'm not sure how much time had passed, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and at last, there stood the person who saved my life. I wanted to get up to greet him but he made me sit down again and instead, took another chair and sat next to me. It was an old man in his late 60s maybe, with a huge built and muscles that still seemed strong. His face was hidden by a thick but short beard for the most part, his eyes looked fierce, at first, but at second glance you could see a bit of kindness somewhere deep inside.

His clothes were simple but neat, in the same style as the ones I was wearing just then.

"I... I'm sorry, I took your books without permision. I didn't see you anywhere around, sir, and this library just looked so tempting..."

The man smiled a little at me and spoke in a deep hoarse voice: "How are you feeling, little traveller?"

"Well... Actually... pretty good. Nothing hurts. How did you do that?"

He pointed towards a section called "Health and Medicine".

At the moment, I thought that books are simply amazing.

Then he looked at me again. "So what is a youngling like you doing, wandering around such a dangerous forest. Besides you're clearly not from around here. Did you get lost all the way from the Fey Wild...?"

I laughed slightly and felt my upper body disagree with the sudden shaky movement. "Ugh...! Oh... No, you see... I am 18 years old and I am Eladrin only from my mother's side, so I'm actually an adult already. And I've never been to Fey Wild, really. I was born and raised in Narradian lands."

"I see," the man nodded, "you are quite far from your homeland then. But we should introduce ourselves. I am the Master of this place. And this place is "N'Attallon". A forgotten library in the middle of the woods."

The introduction of himself seemed rather vague but I didn't intend to pry as I wasn't going to reveal my origins that easily as well. "I am Damian, a shaman in training."

"A shaman! I can see why you took the interest in this wildreness. Yes, yes... the nature around is rather spectacular, I guess. It is nothing new to me anymore but I do remember when I came here for the first time, I was astonished."

"Tell me, Master... Why is there a "library in the middle of the woods"? I saw here some ancient books, very rare and full of wisdom... shouldn't more people have access to jewels like these...?"