Dragon’s Eye - The Kingdom of Nerelai

I

    The kingdom of Nerelai was a vast growing place that had existed for over millennia. The kingdom had lived in peace for the most part. Nothing as dangerous as a dragon's attack had occurred. A few bandits would show but nothing the brave knights of the kingdom could not handle. The king's mages had become collectors over the years. They had gathered magical objects imbued in strong arcana. Most of the mages would be replaced by the newcomers once they grew old. Every newcomer will go through several years of training before becoming a full bonafide mage. Everyone answered to the elder headmaster mage. Kathifa was the headmaster, she was an elf of origin which means she could live for thousands of years. Over time she had forgotten about which items were in the magical vault. 

    One day a young newcomer was cleaning the headmaster's office. Her name was Epheria. She was tall, pale skin, robust and shiny orange hair. She dyed her hair hoping she would learn magic faster. She came from a family of blacksmiths but did not want to follow in their footsteps, she wanted to be a mage instead. The chances of her learning arcana were slim. She was impatient and hot-headed, and always got into trouble. She had worked hard for three years and in that time she had not learned a single spell or incantation. She had gained Kathifa’s favor by constantly helping her gather rare materials and keeping inventory of all her magical objects that were in the headmaster's office. Epheria hoped that by being so closed to the headmaster maybe some of her arcana would rub off on her. 

    As she cleaned the office she noticed it was filled with an abundant amount of books and scrolls more than usual. There were so many, some were piled on the floor and surpassed the desk in the middle of the office. The office had huge windows which were being covered by dark brown curtains. The books spread throughout the whole office, there was very little room for walking. There was a table that contained many ingredients for potions and the headmaster's experiments. There were two walls that had long bookshelves and were over-filled. Epheria moved slowly throughout the office trying not to knock any of the books, “Headmaster Kathifa must have them in order of research, I do not want to make her mad'', she said to herself and chuckled a little “I never seen her angry”, as she said this she knock a big old book with golden pages and it made a loud sound. “Oh no!”, she said. Epheria quickly but carefully picked it up. The book read ‘Anthology and history of Nerelai’ her eyes open wide “Oh this is a book about the history of this kingdom, how interesting”, she said. She set it on the desk and opened it slowly since it was an old book, she did not want to ruin it. The cover looked scratched and some scuff marks were on it, but once she opened it the golden pages were immaculate. “But how can this be, this book looks brand new”, said Epheria and then noticed some small white and golden sparkles floating from the pages, the book was emitting arcana, there was powerful magic keeping the book in such condition. The first page read ‘welcome reader and be prepared to embark on a great journey as you learn the secrets of this great land, the kingdom of Nerelai’. 

    Epheria read this out loud and the bookshelves to the right of the room began to glow, slowly they opened to reveal a hidden room. She had never seen this room, did not even know there was a room behind the bookshelves. She walked slowly to this mysterious room. She did keep track of all the inventory that was in the headmaster’s office, naturally, she needed to know what was in this room. The room was dark, and she stumbled into the room hitting something that made a gurgling sound. “Ouch what was that?”, said Epheria “how I wish there were lights” suddenly the room had lights, and saw that the room was empty. She looked puzzled and said “wait a moment, where is the stuff I hit, what was that thing? I thought there were things here”, suddenly a mountain of artifacts and trinkets and boxes began to slowly appear. The room was full, like the office there was barely any room to walk around. “Oh the room had some kind of spell”, She said and looked behind her and saw a small slime creature and she jumped and ran to the end of the room. In her rush, she hit a small wooden box. Like everything there it looked old, but this wooden box was ancient, the wood was almost falling apart. The slime creature never moved. “Oh I ran for nothing, that thing is not scary at all, oh what is this?” she looked down at the wooden box and noticed it had opened, she leaned in and saw the content of the box, it was a jade stone in the shape of an eye. “That is pretty, but jade is so common around this parts, why keep this one here, am sure anyone can buy this down at the market, must have some sentimental value for the headmaster”, she said, the stone began to glow, Epheria grabbed it and the glow intensified tremendously, the room was cover in green light. She stared at the stone as if she was in a trance. She blinked and the stone was gone. “What? Where did it go? Oh no headmaster is going to be mad if I do not find it”, said Epheria, 

    She got up and made her way out of the room. She closed the ‘Anthology and history of Nerelai’ book that was on the desk and the bookshelves went back to normal. She would look for the stone later, she had wasted enough time she thought and needed to gather the daily supply of ingredients for the headmaster's potions. As she walked out of the office, she saw her reflection on a mirror and saw that one of her eyes was green while the other was brown.