Jerome looked around the sparse room that was given to him. He had walked back down two stories to the ground floor of the palace and then to the north wing towards the back. The room was small and utilitarian.
To his right was a simple bed with a wooden frame fit for a single adult, and just about a foot high off the ground. There was a straw mat underneath a thick layer of off-white cotton spread which had seen better days. Another cotton spread was folded neatly and kept at the head of the bed — a blanket then, or a pillow. Well, he wasn’t here for comfort but to learn and grow stronger.
Two drawers were built into the side of the wooden frame of the bed and contained more sets of uniforms and a cloth bag to hold soiled clothes. A note by the side said he was to put his soiled uniforms inside the bag and leave it outside his door for the maid.
To the right of the bed was a chair and a reading table. He sat down on the wooden chair and picked up some leaflets with instructions on them. One of them had the rough sketch of a map — the map of the ground floor of the Palace. There was a crude oil lamp by the side, meant to support reading at night.
A knock on the door pulled his attention and he saw Rihal walk in.
“How are you settling in?” his master asked.
Jerome smiled at him. He was looking a lot better now without the dirty cloak he saw him in all the time. Rihal wore a tight armor-like black sleeveless leather vest and leather pants. His bulging muscles were a surprise to Jerome. He never thought the blind man could be so muscular. He was also looking younger. His hair was cut short, close to his scalp. And his facial hair looked neat but wasn’t cut close to his face.
“Are you going to keep staring, or are gonna answer?”
“I’m doing fine. Thank you,” he said still staring. “Why me though?”
Rihal sat by the edge of the table and folded those bulging muscles across his chest. “You aren’t special if that’s what you’re thinking. Vorthe does this sometimes.”
“So you’re Royalty then. Should I call you Lord?” Jerome teased.
“Yes,” Rihal nodded, “Yes, you should call me Lord.”
Case in point. But Jerome wasn’t one to bow to circumstances. And Rihal’s head would just grow a size bigger from being called Lord. He needed someone to put a restraint on that ego. Well, Jerome to duty!
“It says here that novices wear gray robes with no crests. Apprentices,” he thumbed his chest with a smirk, “wear brown robes, also with no crests. An initiate would wear a red robe and an adept would wear a green robe. So the man you threw crystal coins at was an adept?”
“Yes, Jerome. What’s your point?”
“Wasn’t he too old for that? He looks to me like a master.”
“Ranks aren’t given by age, Jerome. Didn’t Kilian discuss this with you?”
“Well, yes. But shouldn’t he have attained some impressive feats already? He looks to be almost fifty.”
Rihal laughed. “You still see with the eyes of a mortal. That man is almost 300 years old. And yes, he has attained some impressive feats since becoming a disciple.”
Jerome’s jaw dropped. 300 years old! That was…he had no words. It was an impressive amount of years to live, and still look fifty. It was one thing to know that sacred artists live long lives, and another to stand before a 300-year-old man. Incredible! Which brought up the question: How old was Rihal?
Jerome looked up at his master with newfound respect. Was Rihal an adept like the man? Did the Royals go through the same training and wear the same uniforms?
“Just concentrate on your studies and training for now, Jerome. A few hundred years is nothing to a sacred artist,” Rihal said as he stood up. “Make sure you read the rest of the instructions. Your training starts tomorrow at dawn. You can visit the library in the evenings. Hold out your right hand, Jerome.”
Jerome did as he was told and Rihal tied a leather string woven into a bracelet to his wrist. Am I being tagged now? he thought.
“This bracelet is your identity on these grounds. It contains a crystal,” he tapped a bulge on the leather where the dial of a modern watch would be, “that contains your information. There are special scripted artifacts that are used to read the information on the crystal. Make sure to wear it always.” He turned around to leave.
“And oh,” he turned back, “watch out for those that are higher in rank than you are and make sure to bow when you pass them by. This is not the slums, Jerome. Here, our motto is respect, order, and discipline. Make it a slogan. And try not to find yourself on the receiving end of the Overseer’s whip.”
That startled him. “Why is there an Overseer? Does Vorthe have slaves? Are disciples treated as slaves?” Jerome’s mouth was already throwing questions before his brain could filter his words.
“We’re not barbarians, Jerome,” Rihal snapped at him with a strong glare. “I can’t believe you’d compare us with a bunch of uncivilized animals.”
Jerome quickly raised his hands signaling peace. “I meant no disrespect, Rihal.”
Rihal sighed. “You are too smart for your own good, you know? Sometimes I forget you know very little about society. The Overseer is there to keep unruly disciples in their place. Make sure to visit the library.”
Well, that was new. He had never seen Rihal angry before. This was probably because they were now in new territory. The slum was a lawless place, didn’t mean the rest of Farryn was. What did he call it again: respect, order, and discipline? Right.
He looked at his hand with the string on it. It wasn’t tight, but it wasn’t loose either. The crystal bulge in the dial position was flat at the bottom and rounded at the top. It was half the width of his wrist. He would have loved to study this crystal that could hold information like a storage device but he’d have to open the leather covering to do so. It was better not to antagonize Rihal again.
On the one hand, Vorthe seemed to be technologically lacking. On the other, they seemed to be ahead of their time. The devil was in the details, however. Jerome just had to look around to understand how and why Vorthe was the way it was. And he was pretty damn sure essence had a lot to do with technology in this society. Especially now that he could sense it.
Stolen story; please report.
Essence was everywhere. He breathed it in and walked on it. Jerome couldn’t help but marvel at his new reality. Was this possible back on Earth? Hell, no. Mankind never made any discoveries about energy that could be absorbed by the human body to make it stronger. All of it now felt surreal, like he was in a dream. But he knew he was very much awake. Jerome sighed and stood up to go find the library. There was much he had to learn about Vorthe still.
He suddenly realized that his room was completely dark. There was no light streaming in from the window. However, he could still see clearly. The colors around him were muted. But the contrast of his skin against the darkness was greatly enhanced compared to how it looked before he became a sacred artist. Jerome smiled in wonder. He truly had evolved. He truly wasn’t a mere mortal anymore. It was a lot to take in.
~~~
“A new apprentice?” A young man at the counter said, looking at him with pause. “Never knew you as a novice.”
Jerome nodded. He had found the library quite easily with the map drawn on one of the instruction leaflets. This young librarian behind the counter seemed to be in the same Realm as him as he couldn’t sense the weight of his presence pushing against him. His robe was also the same mahogany brown color as his but without the leather parts.
“I’m new here,” Jerome said, opting out of telling him he was also new as a sacred artist. Wouldn’t want everyone thinking he was a greenhorn.
“Hold your bracelet over the crystal,” the librarian said uninterestingly. He must be bored to death with his job here.
Jerome did as he was told, with the dial facing downwards, a few inches away from the crystal. He felt a spark of essence from the bracelet at that moment. It was quick and weak. Odd. The crystal — a small round glass-like gem that bulged out making a rounded top also glowed at the same moment with a prismatic light of various colors.
Jerome stopped himself from gaping. Now, that’s something you don’t see every day, he thought with suppressed astonishment.
The librarian glanced into the crystal and glanced back at him, his face showing more interest in Jerome. Jerome felt a brow rise in curiosity. What could have caused such a sudden interest?
“You are named?” the librarian asked. There was a bit of wonder in his voice.
Ah. He could see the reason now. There probably weren’t many named disciples around.
“Yes, I’m named. Do I get a card or…?” he asked, uncertain about what it was he was to do. He didn’t know how libraries operated in Vorthe. The librarian quickly snapped out of it and tapped on the crystal a few times before facing Jerome again.
“There is a section of the library meant for apprentices. Follow me,” the librarian said and left the counter with Jerome in tow.
“Are you — never mind,” Jerome wanted to ask if he was allowed to leave the counter. He could have just given him directions. Weren’t there other librarians that helped with showing people around?
Jerome followed him to a wing of the library where there were no other disciples. Which was fine by him. But he noticed that there were no lines of bookshelves around him either. Only a few chairs and tables, arranged here and there.
“Shouldn’t there be bookshelves here?” he asked absently.
“The books will be brought to you by an attendant. There are recommendations already inscribed within your bracelet.”
Odd. “Can I get something on the history of the sacred arts?”
“Sure,” the librarian answered as he walked away.
Jerome sat there for a while waiting for the books to come. It was odd that the library worked with a strange system like this. Did they assume that the books would be damaged or worse, stolen? Perhaps, they did, but that wasn’t reason enough to take the choice of what to read away from the reader. He caught sight of the object that provided lighting in this wing of the library — a very interesting technology.
Jerome got up to investigate the object. It was a sphere and it looked like it was cut in half with the flat side of it stuck on the wall. But a closer look told him it was fixed into the stone wall. The sphere gave off both warmth and light but he couldn’t sense any essence from it.
Jerome touched it and was surprised to learn it felt like stone. A glowing crystal, like the ones in the corridors on the upper levels of the palace. This one didn’t have the same shine that the ones upstairs had though. It was smooth and round like a large pearl. Jerome tapped it lightly with his knuckles and confirmed that it was in fact, as hard as a rock.
Someone coughed, startling him.
“You shouldn’t touch that. They are expensive,” the attendant said, scowling at him. The man was putting on the bright red robe of an initiate so Jerome bowed lightly to him.
“Apologies,” he said, but the attendant had already walked off.
Great. Now he had offended someone he just met. The attendant dropped some tomes on a table and walked away without saying another word. Jerome shrugged to himself and sat down to read. He’d apologize later.
~~~
Essence has been in existence since time immemorial. There was never a time before essence came to be, and no recorded origin of the energy that permeates the world. Its concept is like the heavens and the planes. Before mankind learned to use essence, other beings that were revered as gods were masters of the world.
Great wars were fought and many lives were lost in the bid for power. Soon, mankind discovered essence — the very power that made the gods what they were. They spent years, learning to absorb it, experimenting with various breathing exercises and meditation, and millennia more learning to wield it — strengthening their bodies and biding their time until they could match the false gods in power.
In time, they waged war against the gods to free their people and seize back their lands.
Vorthe came into power with one such war over 70,000 years ago and has been in power ever since. Vorthe, the first Transcendent in these lands unified the land and its people. The four Great Clans that also inhabited the North, East, West, and South were also annexed — Itakar, Fei, Baelor, and Alvric.
House Itakar, House of the Frozen Earth. Their clan inhabited the cold North of Vorthe where magical beasts abound. They had fought many battles against these ferocious beasts and built walls to defend their land, but the ‘beast tide’ still remains to this day. When Vorthe came to power, he extended his aura over all his land, suppressing the beast tide in the North…
“You should get some rest. Tomorrow will be hectic,” Rihal said from beside Jerome.
“Where did you come from?” Jerome closed the tome he was reading.
“I’ve been here for a while.”
Jerome sat back in his chair thinking how to pose his question without being offensive. He could never know when he’d say the stupidest thing — or insult tradition. But hey, it’s just about books.
“Ask what you will,” Rihal said with a smile. “I won’t bite.”
“There are no bookshelves in the library. Why is that?”
“This wing of the library was just renovated. One will be installed soon.”
Jerome looked at his surroundings with new eyes. The stone walls did look new now and so did the tiled floor. Or maybe clean was a better description.
“One?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. He noticed the floor tiles weren’t glazed.
“What?”
“Only one bookshelf would be installed?” Now that he thought about it all the clay jars and pots they used to fetch water in the slum weren’t glazed. And they were purchased in the market in Farryn. Did Vorthe not know about glazing? Another thing to plan for then.
Rihal didn’t answer him. Just glared at him as if to say, ‘Stop it’.
“I don’t feel tired, Rihal. I think I can still go for a bit.”
Rihal shook his head. “Go to sleep, Jerome. You’d be glad you did. Trust me. Your body is still adjusting to everything new and you need to let it. It needs a lot of rest — at least for today. You would have enough time to read all you want.”
Jerome sighed and stood up. “Very well. Guess it’s bedtime then. But first, I need writing materials.”