The Scriptorium

About the Scriptorium

You lean against the massive, iron-bound oak. Slowly, slowly, the mighty door groans open. The growling and clanking grows suddenly louder, and a rush of warm air swirls across your face. Stepping through the door, you find yourself in a large, irregularly shaped chamber open to the floor below where rests a massive machine that towers up two stories. A dozen small, white-haired creatures... gnomes, you believe... scamper and scurry along walkways and ladders, pulling levers and ropes, opening valves, pumping bellows, and twisting, poking, and prodding things you don't even have a name for. Clouds of steam fill the air, and water drips from vents down onto the stone floor below to be mopped up by more gnomes.

A catwalk leads across the room and under a great swaying beam that grates against a rotating metal cylinder. On the other side, you think you see another door and start across, hoping this wood and metal monstrosity won't turn out to be some sort of challenge you have to defeat. Just before you pass under the beam, the juggernaut wheezes and coughs to a stop, belching steam from a score of vents.

A wizened gnome leaps down from a platform, just to one side of the catwalk, clutching a folded sheaf of paper. He waves it in your startled face as he stomps by. "What'd you expect," he grumps, "a monk sitting at a writing desk copying script onto parchment by candlelight?"

You give a faint nod.

"Well, he's in there." The gnome points over his shoulder to the small door at the end of the catwalk, then scurries off, waving his short arms and yelling as the beast fires up again, spewing an inordinate amount of steam from a vent down below.

You make your way on across the catwalk and pause before the plain, wooden door. You raise a hand and knock.

"Enter," a voice calls.

You pull on the hand ring —no squeaks or groans on this one. It opens to a spartan but comfortable apartment. The main room isn't large, perhaps thirty feet long and twenty wide. A man in a cream and brown cowl sits at a small wooden table in front of a fireplace at the far end. He scratches away diligently at a piece of parchment with a long quill.

You step into the room. Silence... except for the sound of the quill. Over your shoulder, the gnomish machine still shudders and steams away, but no sound penetrates this sanctuary—nor gnomes, you suspect.

You return your attention to the room. To your left several book cases bracket the single window that looks out over the rolling green hills beyond the Court's walls. The only other furniture in the room is a pair of cushioned chairs and a small table. A fine rug covers the wooden floor. It is hand woven and only slightly faded and depicts a stream scene, complete with silvery fish and reedy banks. Near the center of the stream, a feminine figure with a lion's head stands waist deep in the water. Hieroglyphs, the meaning of which you cannot grasp, wrap around the border of the rug in deep copper tones.

The cowled man lays aside his quill and looks up. "Greetings, friend." A shock of sandy red hair peeks out from beneath the hood. "You are a seeker, are you not?"

He merely nods at your puzzled expression and continues on. " My name is Stalzer. I serve She of Storms and Running Waters, but when time allows, I tend this sanctuary, and those who seek it out." He laughs. "The gnomes print copies by the score, then carry them all across the countryside. What they don't understand is that only those who come here, those who seek, will appreciate what they find." He holds out a carefully folded and lettered booklet. "Here, I was making this one for you..."

Right click the link and select "Save Target As..." File size is approximately 1.3 MB. When you open the pdf file, go to View/Page Layout and select "facing" to view the issue in its proper format.

Summer 2007 Features

New Tales

Available Only from the Scriptorium

A Measure of Worth

An Idyll of the Quest by Terence P. Ward July 2007

It is Springfest XX, and the clan of Falo gathers in the Wayward Wood. Forests of the fey are known to be somewhat less than “safe,” but what emerges from beneath the shadows of the trees this time is... unexpected. Can those gathered for the Spring festivities help an ancient guardian regain his sacred charge from magical creatures of the Forest’s deepest umbra? All who step forward shall be measured. But what exactly is the test?

Leaning on a stout staff for support, the wizened old man hesitated as he came to the wood. It was dark, and the undergrowth thick. He looked at the map he held. Clearly this was the Wayward Wood, and his path lay directly through the middle. He frowned at the map, and then at the woods themselves. He did not like the look of them, but he did not know of a way around, and he had not the time to discover a new route.

Other eyes watched the wrinkled one as he considered his options.

“Does he have it?”

“He looks too weak to even carry it.”

“He looks too stupid to know if he does.”

“Wait, he looks like he will enter . . .”

[read this scroll]

[have the gnomes print a plain format 8.5 x 11 pdf]

[have the gnomes print a 5.5 x 8.5 pdf booklet] see printing instructions

Shadowrunner

by D. J. McNulty July 2007

Kei Mak, mother-to-be of Rinka Tur, stands before the council and awaits her fate. No one, not even Kei, expects the posting she is assigned. Her duty takes her into the realm between worlds where she makes an enemy with a long memory and a long arm… long enough, perhaps, to reach out through time to those she loves.

Kei stood before the Gate.  Alone.  Taim had made good time. Even with two wounded in his party, he’d beaten her here and already passed through.  For that, she was glad.  Though it meant she might not get the chance to say goodbye, it also meant there was no one to bar her way, or to try to dissuade her from taking this path.   

She raised her hand to the stone archway, and concentrated, calling up enough magic to activate the Gate.  After all this time, she still remembered the call.  It shimmered to life before her.  

“Last chance,” she muttered to herself.  The Chieftess glanced over her shoulder once more at the woods, at her home, at her prison.  Her prison… that decided it.  She clenched her teeth and stepped into the Gate’s glow, into shadow.

For her freedom, she would go into the darkness, once more.

 

[read this scroll]

[have the gnomes print a plain format 8.5 x 11 pdf]

[have the gnomes print a 5.5 x 8.5 pdf booklet] see printing instructions

Charisse

A Tale of Barunmundy by D. J. McNulty July 2007

The sorrows that flow from Grodner’s hand do not end with the da Kaynashi heirs. Barunmundy law requires that a ruler wed, and if Grodner would be king, he must adhere to the law. Charisse is to be the fulfillment of his duty. She goes willingly to Barunmundy, betrothed to a crown prince and a seal on an alliance. But will she decide the sacrifice is too great? Will there be anyone to help her?

The Crown Prince, Grodner da Kaynashi, stood at the head of the palace stairway, framed in the stone archway that rose to an elegant pinnacle above his head. He had chosen this particular spot to stand in for just that reason. Appearance, after all, is everything.

He tossed his head ever so slightly to make his dark hair flutter with the breeze that came up. He shifted a bit so that the cape hanging dramatically over one shoulder also caught the breeze. The crown, HIS crown, fit his head perfectly, as it should. His head, and none other, had been destined to wear this crown. It had taken much manipulating to ensure that no other could lay claim to what was rightfully Grodner’s. He was now the sole royal in residence in Barunmundy. His brothers and sisters, the princes and princesses, were all now conveniently absent from the borders of the kingdom. Grodner smiled to himself, once again pleased with the way things had turned out; his way, of course.

[read this scroll]

[have the gnomes print a plain format 8.5 x 11 pdf]

[have the gnomes print a 5.5 x 8.5 pdf booklet] see printing instructions