Prologue for November 2025

Once upon a time stories began to leave their pages. It started with drops of ink dripping off parchment and paper, innocuous at first as readers thought the books and newspapers they were reading just had not fully dried. Drops turned to words, words turned to pages and pages turned into entire books as they went blank. 

Maeve read to her daughter the story of Ser Alfid and the Lochmire Beast at bedtime. She has been doing this for months now and secretly hoped for her daughter to get bored of it, but her raptured eyes as she sat underneath the blanket was enough for Maeve to continue the tradition. She made it an effort to accentuate every sword swing, every movement to make the story everything her daughter wanted it to be. “The knight turned to the beast and said…” She could not read the words on the page. They were falling away. She tried to remember. After all she has read this story dozens of times but nothing came to mind. The title of the book faded away, and with that her daughter’s dreams of heroic deeds and slaying monsters. 

The skald forgot his voice as he was telling the tale of the Winter Wolf. For a moment he thought it was the cold that got in the way of his words but as he tried to recollect he could not for the life of him remember the words of the edda. He looked towards the drawings etched into wood on the wall of the longhouse but there was no drawing as the etching disappeared within moments. He could only sit in silence as he knew something was missing but he could not remember just what it was. Only that it was something that his father and fathers before would tell their people. 

Archivist Elaine could not believe her eyes as the books trapped behind enchanted chains and warding began to rattle. Each of the tomes a world within the pages, brought to life by their very readers. They buckled and shook as ink began to fall upon the floor. She knew that days before a book went missing from their archives, an omnibus created by a former member containing many fantastical tales. She ran into an office as panicked archivists, wayfarers and librarians of the Order of the Forgotten Tome tried to calm the storm of pages and ink in front of them. She quickly lit a candle, muttered words in the arcane tongue and scried upon where this could be. She saw the tome nestled in the bag of a traveller headed to Travance. As she went to end the ritual, with a wave of a hand the traveller took control, his eyes settled on the Archivist’s. “Soon my dream will be realized,” He sneered, “the Hero will die and in its absence shall be a god.” Cold sweat ran down her back as she collected her things and rushed back to a Proper that she knew from a book of Knights so long ago.