Rix's Story

Backstory by MC

From childhood, Rixalin "Rix" Estarl knew her purpose in life was to help people. Perhaps it was her nature-- it certainly feels that way now-- but if she's being honest, she can admit she wasn't given a choice.

In Rix's hometown of Azphaleia, a young person might dream of any number of vocations or lifestyles, but living in service of others was non-negotiable. Rix and the rest of her large family of halflings were farmers. Rix learned to feed and brush the horses, change diapers, mend torn seams, and fold and iron clothes, all before she could read or write. With six children, there was no shortage of chores, and once those were done, there was always an elderly neighbor or newly resettled family who could use a pair of capable hands.

Her childhood included little time for playing games or making up stories, but despite that, she rarely felt anything but grateful. She saw firsthand the consequences of a truly harsh life. Nearly daily, families (or, much too frequently, orphaned children) were rescued preparing to or trying to cross the Leosi River to reach the safety of Azphaleia. Rix had no true understanding of war or poverty, but she had seen desperation. Starvation. Injury and disease. Grief too agonizing to speak of, fear too distressing to describe. Two of her own siblings had come to their family under such circumstances.

When lye burned split blisters on her hands; when she hauled produce into town on a toe broken by an excitable colt; when she carried her feverish little brother to the hospital despite suffering the same fever herself-- still she remembered that she had a home, a bed (shared with two sisters, but a bed nonetheless), regular meals enriched by the bounty of land they owned outright, and two living parents. Strict, no-nonsense parents who were perhaps slightly less warm, less affectionate than others, but hardworking, compassionate people, intent on sharing more with their community than could ever be repaid.

While Rix never renounced her gratitude, she did allow a small flame of self-interest to burn in her chest as her sixteenth birthday approached. Sixteen was the age at which the children of Azphaleia were assigned apprenticeships. Every child in town was expected to learn some means of benefiting the community before adulthood. Rix might have just been apprenticed to her parents, but as her older sister and brother had already enthusiastically taken on expanded roles on the farm, it was decided that Rix would be of greater use elsewhere.

Rix had no specific secret desire for her apprenticeship. She knew that any position would require hard work and likely tedious study. She wasn't anticipating an easier life, but could not stifle the spark of excitement at the idea of experiencing something new. She would move out of her parents' house, interact with new people, and for the first time in her memory, she might not be responsible for the care of other children. Unless she was apprenticed at a school or nursery. Should that happen, she promised herself, I will not be ungrateful. If she repeated this enough times, perhaps she would find it to be true.

But that promise was not put to the test; Rix was bewildered and delighted to find that she had been apprenticed to the monastery to learn, of all things, book arts. Her new, private room, with its single bed and utilitarian desk, provided a luxury so foreign to Rix, she'd never known to covet it: peace and quiet.

She began her apprenticeship learning to identify, sort, and clean ink from the printing type. Over the endless whirring and rhythmic clank of the press, her superiors would drop scraps of knowledge. They taught her about typefaces-- that each one had a character all its own affecting how a text would be read. She came to understand the power of a judiciously applied italic; the disconcerting effect of misaligned centering; which combinations of glyphs require a ligature to appear even with their fellows.

The book arts department used these skills to design and produce new editions of out of print (or, occasionally, newly handwritten) educational texts and histories. This skill set was not unique to Azphaleia, but the academic freedom afforded to the monastery attracted the attention of scholars from across Ardesia. No individual school, faith, or governing body had veto power over what the library department chose as their next project. The monastery's guiding principle matched that of Azphaleia itself: all ideas were welcome, so long as their distribution could contribute to the betterment of others.

Soon, Rix's meticulous attention to detail earned her the right to handle the library's collection of delicately preserved incunabula and rare manuscripts. Within three years, while still an apprentice, it was known that she was the unofficial second in command of the book arts team. Seven years in, the title became official.

Rix found endless joy in this life-- every day, she proved her worth to her superiors, ate lunch and dinner at the cafeteria with the other library staff, and retired to her room. And though she wasn't growing vegetables or tanning leather, she was proud of contributing to the preservation of knowledge that might otherwise be lost.

Being the youngest member of the library department did require Rix to take on the least desirable tasks in the office. She continued to be responsible for the organization of the type cases-- her eyesight was the strongest, and her back the least affected by bending and lifting trays heavy with lead. If a visiting academic was on a tight schedule and had requested extra time with one of the library's fragile originals, she would stay past regular closing time to supervise.

In the spring leading up to her twenty-fourth birthday, Rix was called to meet with the stern but patient Chief Librarian, Vancelle Maen. Despite two decades of administering the library, The Chief's office was utilitarian, with bare walls and not a single personal bookshelf. The older woman explained to a nervous Rix that her youth and (relative) fitness had earned her the privilege of a particularly troublesome task.

Runners had been sent ahead to request assistance for a larger than usual group of displaced Crystalians. An avalanche had wiped out a large majority of their village, and rather than rebuild on the mountain, the survivors had decided to travel across Evervale to the famed hospitality and bounty of Azphaleia. Some had almost nothing, as their homes and businesses had been devoured by the snow. But others had been luckier, and had brought their valuables along with them, to barter for goods (or bribe guards) along the way. Among these was an elderly wizard who, according to the runners, had been insistent that he carried preserved documents and records of great historical and monetary value. The longer these texts sat in a leaky chest in unpredictable spring weather, the less likely they were to arrive in Azphaleia in salvageable condition. Thus, Rix would briefly take on the role of adventuring librarian-- she was to travel on foot with the squad of Azphaleian soldiers being sent to intercept and protect the refugees. Her responsibility, however, would be the interception and protection of these documents.

Rix suspected she would not thrive on the road, and she was quickly proven right. The callouses on her feet had faded when she traded farm work for book arts. It had been eight years since she last fell asleep surrounded by the mumbling, snoring, and grunting of others, and her childhood indifference to such noises did not return. She couldn't help but laugh at her diminished resilience-- when she wasn't scowling.

After three days of travel, they finally met up with the band of displaced Crystalians and Rix was able to fulfill her role. She'd been given spell scrolls to magically preserve parchment, but also bolts of untreated, absorbent wool to wrap around the cracked leather bindings and any particularly fragile individual sheets. She treated the interiors of the chest with beeswax and the outside with tung oil to provide extra waterproofing. As she handled the bound books and loose documents, she found that even her untrained hand could feel the sharp tickles of magic rippling through the leather and paper.

The way back was supposed to be easier, seeing as the newcomers had a wagon, and Rix felt it was fair to request a spot in which she could keep an eye on her inanimate charge. She did not expect anything so frightening as a moose, much less an attack.

Thankfully, their soldierly escort was more prepared than she. Rix didn't even look up when a scout came bounding through the brush ahead of the next turn of the road. Suddenly, a harsh whisper compelled Rix and her companion to leave the wagon. There was an ambush set, almost certainly bandits, and they would need to go off the road, hide the wagon among trees, and continue on foot.

It had not occurred to Rix until this moment that she could be in danger. The threat of developing blisters, she had considered, but a true threat to her life? Her heart pounded as the wagon was slowly and carefully driven off the road and into the thick woods. She began to climb out, but was stopped by the old man. He glared at her and gestured at the chest, miming picking it up and cradling it like an infant.

Rix shook her head, grabbed his hand, and gently tugged him toward the back, but he continued to resist, and even went so far as to sit down and cross his arms like a petulant child before bath time.

Rix looked around for help, but her fellow Azphaleians were busy readying weapons. She hoped the old man might have some family who would take responsibility for his absurd refusal to flee. As the rest of the group began fading silently into the trees, Rix's stomach sank. She knew she couldn't leave him here. She would make too much noise trying to convince him. It took her a moment to gather up her resolve. She tiptoed over and picked up the chest.

The man was happy to follow then. Rix guessed the chest was at least twenty-five pounds. She and the stubborn wizard followed in the direction they'd seen their companions sneaking off. But, to no one's surprise, an old man and a halfling carrying more than half her own weight were rather slow going. They quickly lost sight of the group. They walked resolutely in the same general direction until they came upon the bank of a river, roughly twenty feet wide. Rix couldn't help it. She was lost in the woods with an old man and a chest of mysterious magical documents. She laughed.

Immediately, shouts echoed behind them. They started far off, but were coming closer. Rix would likely have panicked until the bandits found her, but the elderly wizard had better instincts. He rushed to the riverbank, sliding down with the help of a fallen tree limb. Following him, Rix saw where erosion had hollowed out the banks on each side, leaving an overhang. The man motioned her to follow, so she handed him the documents and leapt down. With the chest held between them, they crouched, still and silent. The gentle flow of the river reached the tops of the wizard's boots, and thus Rix was soaked up to mid thigh.

Rix mentally cursed her own foolishness as the voices approached their hiding spot. If the documents were lost, or this man was injured or killed, it would be her fault entirely. Clearly, she was a liability anywhere outside the library.

Suddenly, the water in front of Rix began to froth and swirl. She barely held in a gasp as the eddies rose up and formed a humanoid face carved from the current. Its translucent eyes looked directly at her.

Another shout, almost overhead, giving the all clear. Rix's head swiveled to listen as their pursuers faded away from the river and back into the forest.

When she looked back down, the face in the water was gone. Instead, lying perfectly still beneath the current was a small, glowing brass bell. On instinct, Rix grabbed it, making sure to slide her thumb in next to the clapper to keep it silent.

As she pulled the bell from the water, its mysterious light drifted to her, a tendril weaving through each finger, meeting at her palm and continuing up. A clarity she'd never known flooded her senses, and in that moment, she knew that this light was a herald of something greater. Something that needed Rix. When she thought she might burst with the immensity of the feeling, it reached her heart and settled there. She glanced over at the wizard, but he seemed not to have noticed a thing.

After twenty more minutes of silence, they nodded to each other and climbed out of their foxhole. Rix once again took over carrying the chest, but it felt lighter. She'd slipped the bell into an inner pocket of her jacket, making sure to stuff fabric into its mouth to keep it still. They followed the bank of the river for an hour before an Azphaleian scout found them and guided them to camp for the night. All the while, Rix wondered if the gentle warmth she felt emanating from her pocket was real or only in her mind.

When she arrived home, Rix's first priority was ensuring the wizard's documents were safe and prepared for preservation. But back in her room, before falling into bed for the most welcome sleep of her life, she pulled out the bell. It looked ordinary now. Holding her breath, Rix twisted her wrist gently back and forth. As far as she could tell, its moderate chime was perfectly normal. She stilled it quickly, lest she annoy her neighbors.

The bell sat on the upper left corner of Rix's desk for the next two and a half years. Occasionally she would give ringing it another try. Once, she brought it with her to visit her parents and rang it as hard as she could in the middle of their barley field. Even at full force, it wasn't particularly loud. She stopped wondering about its mysterious, magical origins and accepted it as a decorative souvenir of her brush with danger.

Rix was relieved to find that physical search and rescue missions were extremely uncommon for the library. Her greatest adversary during these years was a silverfish infestation in the archive space assigned to historical Centran atlases. When she was twenty-six, ten years after Rix had been assigned to her apprenticeship, one of the older First Assistant Librarians fell from a ladder and broke his leg. He decided this injury signaled the end of his career, and so as he prepared to retire officially, the library took on its first new apprentice since Rix.

Rix was overjoyed to give up her status as the youngest librarian, imagining a day when she would wash the ink from under her fingernails and actually keep them clean. But it wasn't just that; it had been years since she had been responsible for teaching anyone anything, and she found herself looking forward to passing along the expertise she'd acquired.

As a 16 year old human, Sira was already taller than Rix, but her face was girlish and dewy. Rix couldn't imagine that she herself had ever looked so young. Sira was bubbly and talkative, often having to be shushed by the senior librarians, but Rix found this endearing. Sira wasn't intended for Rix's department, but Rix still did her best to share what knowledge she had of the library as a whole along with her lessons on printing press maintenance. Sira would pay attention when she was being instructed, but the rest of the time, she talked (or whispered, if recently scolded) continuously. Rix, to her surprise, found this strangely comforting. There was no pressure for Rix to respond, as Sira would keep going in any case. Rix cared for her siblings, and respected her superiors, but had never had the opportunity to form a friendship. Despite the gap in their ages, Rix found after a few months that she was more comfortable around Sira than any other person she knew.

So it was Sira who heard about the dreams first.

Rix watched as Sira organized type into their cases, double checking the placement and orientation. Sira was talking, naturally, recounting some dream about asparagus, and Rix was listening just enough to be reminded of her own strange dream.

"I had an odd dream last night, as well." Actually, it was the third night in a row of this dream, but Rix felt that was too strange a detail to admit.

"Oh, do tell. You've never told me about a dream before! I figure your dreams must be either very boring or very raunchy. I hope raunchy, for your sake. If it was a raunchy dream, please share, I know you think I'm too young for-- "

Rix interjected before Sira could really get going. "I regretfully report that it was not a raunchy dream. Just odd."

Sira hummed. "Odd how? Did you wake up afraid? ‘Cause my asparagus dreams are odd, but they don't scare me. That would be absurd, wouldn't it?"

Rix smiled, pointing out two characters that Sira had switched. "Yes, that might even be more absurd than having dreams about asparagus in the first place. No, the dream doesn't frighten me." She took a breath, wondering how much she'd need to reveal in order to appease her impatient friend.

"It starts with me just walking through a forest in the moonlight. But as I go, it begins to change. The leaves turn brown and fall, and the bark begins flaking off the tree trunks. The bushes and flowers low to the ground shrivel and die. Much of the remaining grass fades, replaced by scorch marks. I come out of the trees into a desert, and at this point I realize I'm following someone."

Sira's eyes widened, as if this were juicy gossip. "Who is it?" she almost screamed. Rix shushed her, dreading the reaction of any higher-ranked librarian who might wander in looking for the noise.

"I'm not sure. From behind, he looks like a very tall, strong, shirtless man. Stop that right now," Rix glares as Sira begins oohing. "It's nothing like that. His body is a deep, warm brown, and from far away, it's hard to tell if he has skin or if he's formed directly from rock. I follow him for ages as we make our way through the desert toward the rising sun. Eventually, he turns around and beckons me to walk beside him."

"Is that it?" Sira doesn't hide her disappointment.

"I told you it wasn't anything exciting." As Rix says this, it feels like a lie. "And anyway, it's just a dream. That's one case down, three to go." Sira rolled her eyes, her cheeks never dropping her smile.

After seven straight nights without relief from the vision, Rix refused to go to sleep. She worked late, sorting and archiving stacks of mislabeled texts. Having finished that, she moved on to lubricating the press's gearboxes and roll bearings. It was past midnight when she ran out of things to oil, at which point she became truly desperate and stole a romance novel out of Sira's bottom desk drawer. She picked the reading room's least padded chair and settled in.

She had just finished the first chapter when Rix was overcome with the instinct to go outside. She stood up, walking briskly toward the oversized wooden double doors that served as the library's main entrance.

When she slipped out, it was not to the cobblestone walkway that led to the monastery's central courtyard. Rix began her walk through the moonlit woods, observing the desiccation of the foliage. The path led her onto rocky sand, and in the distance stood an unfamiliar man. He was more than twice her height, and broad-shouldered like her brothers who still worked on the farm. But as she got closer, she became less sure of his having muscles at all. One moment, he seemed to have the skin of a swarthy humanoid, but the next his body was a moving sculpture of reddish-brown rock. Thin rings of yellow and white shooting through polished sienna would shift into reflections of moonlight over textured skin, and back again.

His eyes could not be mistaken for those of a statue. The irises were a fresh, lively red, flecked with black and gold. He did not blink as Rix approached.

"You've been avoiding me."

The power in his voice hummed up Rix's spine and into her teeth.

"You are full of promise, Rixalin. I would see that promise bear fruit." He leaned down on one knee, closing the distance between them. "My name is Jasper. Call for me when you wake, and I will answer."

Rix awoke with a gasp, slamming her head against the back of her chair. She scrambled up and turned in every direction, frantically checking that she was alone. The library was silent and still. She abandoned Sira's book on the table and bolted, forgetting to lock the door behind her as she sprinted back to her dormitory.

Rix did not go back to sleep. She returned to the library as the sun came up, replacing Sira's book and checking that nothing had been disturbed in her absence. The workday began as any other. Rix did her best to hum and nod in response to Sira's chatter as usual, but by lunchtime, even her garrulous friend had noticed something was off.

Having not a single speck of reticence in her body, Sira addressed this for the entire table to hear. "Rix, spit it out. You've been upset all morning."

"It's nothing, Sira, really."

"You're lying. I can tell. You're a terrible liar, Rix," Sira replied. Rix's mouth opened to retort, but she was mortified to see their entire half of the table nodding solemnly in agreement.

"I don't consider it a skill worth perfecting," she said haughtily, trying to distract everyone. Sira wasn't falling for it, though, and was preparing to return to her investigation when Rix felt the tension in her stomach snap. "If you must know, Sira, it's just that peculiar dream I had." There was no need to mention last night's escalation.

But Sira's wheedling outlasted Rix's resolve. The laughter of the other librarians faded as Rix confessed the dream's recurrence. Rix was horrified to realize that it wasn't just the small group around her and Sira who were listening; at some point the senior librarians at the other end of the table had given her their attention as well.

Chief Vancelle broke the silence. "It has been the same, all eight nights?"

Rix fought the urge to squeak. They were all looking at her, waiting for her to respond. Feeling like she might be sick, she shook her head. "It was different last night. The man-- well, rock-person told me his name, and said that if I called for him, he would answer." This admission hung in the air like a flag of surrender.

The Chief's gray eyes flashed so bright, they briefly matched her whitening hair. "And what was that name?"

"It was Jasper," Rix stuttered. Neither her fellow assistants nor Sira reacted, but Chief Vancelle's eyes sparked again.

The Chief stood up, gesturing to Rix to abandon her meal. Rix's hands shook as she pushed in her chair and followed. Tears distorted her vision and her throat burned. She worried she was in trouble, but more than that, the Chief's reaction emphasized that these were not just dreams. And if they weren't dreams-- what could they possibly mean?

It had been years since Rix had first been called to this office. It still lacked any decoration or personality. Rix imagined that the Chief did not dedicate a drawer in her desk to salacious paperbacks.

This was not a warm or comforting environment in which to receive upsetting news. As the Chief described in detail various esoteric texts pertaining to divine bloodlines, Rix had nothing to distract from her panic. She was force-fed stories of the children of gods with nothing to do but choke them down. Jasper was almost certainly a Titan, born of the goddess Nihm and some minor immortal. Her dreams comprised an offer of power, in exchange for service. A dilution of his mother's divinity, but a great boon nonetheless.

The Chief called in her assistant, handing him a hastily written note. "Take this to the Council. Urgently." Rix must have made a face. The Chief raised one scolding eyebrow and said, "This is bigger than just you, Rix."

Something snapped into place in the set of Rix's shoulders, the rise and fall of her chest. A weight that she'd allowed to grow unfamiliar in the years since she left her parents' house. The weight of responsibility. Of duty.

Rix spent much of the days ahead in attentive silence as strangers discussed her future. Of the eight elders who sat on Azphaleia's town council, two expressed some trepidation. One felt that attracting the notice of any potentially fickle minor deity would bring too much attention to a town that had long thrived on discretion. The second worried that Rix herself could not possibly be trusted with this power. They both came around at the insistence of their fellows that this kind of power in the service of the greater good was well worth any potential downsides.

No one-- not the Council members, the Chief, Rix's parents, nor Rix herself-- worried that she might not want this power.

A week of deliberation and preparation, and Rix was ready to follow instructions and call Jasper to her. This, too, occurred in a dream. She accepted the pact perched at the top of a ridge painted across a sand dune. He fell to one knee once again, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to her forehead. His lips were warm and pliant, then rigid, cold, and unmoving, and then she opened her eyes and he was gone. A fierce energy burst from the point on her forehead where he'd made contact, flowing over and under her skin.

Rix had never sought out a single session of combat training before her pact. At her first session at the training yard, she barely had to think before a heavy flail appeared in her hands. Despite her inexperience, it felt light as she gracefully slung the spiked ball into training dummies. Thought alone manifested as bursts of force energy from her palms. Most shocking: placing her hands on an injury and driving Jasper's power to knit back together broken flesh and skin. There was a limit, sometimes quickly met, but the ability to repair even small wounds filled her with a sense of purpose that martial prowess did not.

Within weeks, she was moved from the tiny room in her civilians' dormitory to a full apartment in the center of town, directly across the street from the Council Office. Over the next year, her new sitting room increasingly served as the site of planning meetings for rescue operations, teas with visiting dignitaries, and late night discussions of town business. While she was not technically a town guard, she was called to join most missions that would take their forces away from Azphaleia, providing support (armed and moral) in the rescue of refugees and the handling of threats. Often these threats were abstract, far to the south or west, but if not, Rix's flail would materialize and be put to work. The crunch of her pact weapon against a skull was no less brutal than that of conventional steel.

As time passed, the Council and other local leaders in Azphaleia seemed to forget the Rix who existed before. Rix tried to do the same. She did not visit the library unless required. Rarely did she join gatherings of her family on the farm. She did not wonder how knowledge and experience might have settled into Sira's dimples.

By thirty-four, Rix was as respected as any council member or business leader in Azphaleia. She was the expected choice for the next open council seat, once it manifested. Jasper had not contacted her since the night she'd agreed to the pact-- she could almost forget the source of her power entirely.

Rix had long stopped wondering if she was happy. Jasper's power allowed her to serve her community, and that was all that mattered.

One Blooming evening, Rix was up late reading through the most recent scouting reports of the Tempestua. It had long fallen to Azphaleia to keep an eye on the arcane storm-- as well as those few fools intent on studying it up close. She was skimming the most updated list of missing persons associated with trips to the storm when she realized she was no longer alone in her sitting room.

Across from her sat her patron, nonchalantly lounging in an armchair that could use reupholstering. Rix gasped and jumped to her feet.

"What are you doing here?" she practically screamed. His form was just as she remembered, casually shifting between skin and stone. Still shirtless, too, Rix noted, almost rolling her eyes.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" That gravelly voice set her entire skeleton on edge. Despite the literal and figurative stoniness of his expression, he seemed to be smiling.

"Are we friends?" She wondered if she would regret being so forthright. But she detected no irritation in his gaze or posture.

"I would be your friend, if you'd have me." Rix had nothing to say to this. "But barring that, we are allies. You have served well, and the time has come for us to move on."

"Move on how?" With her standing and him sitting, they gazed at each other straight on. Even in stillness, mirth lingered in his features.

"You have wielded my power to Azphaleia's advantage these past eight years. Your wisdom predates my patronage, and has also benefited your neighbors. There are other places now in need of your aid."

Rix shook her head, flabbergasted. "I can't leave. This is why I'm here. Why I exist."

Rix wondered if his bright red eyes were even capable of the pity she saw in them. "The you they know does not exist without me," he said slowly. A slap would have stung less. "You have two days to prepare. Bring the bell."

Rix startled awake, curled in her chair with the reports in her lap. She was alone with her dread.

***

This was not the first time Rix had found herself in Azphaleia's feeble excuse for a jail. Crime was rare, but not unheard of, especially in the cases of recent arrivals who hadn't understood or believed that they would be fed and housed. There were only two cells, tucked in the basement beneath a town guardhouse. Being so seldom occupied, they were remarkably clean.

Rix's other visits had consisted of escorting drunks, questioning suspects under the influence of truth spells, and on one occasion, searching for a child who had taken a game of hide and seek too far. Never in her life had she been inside a cell. Until now.

The council had not taken the news of Jasper's edict in stride. Their expressions had ranged from skepticism to horror. One elder had laughed. Then, as if responding to a silent cue, they all began yelling at once.

"This is not funny-- " "can't happen, not when" "young lady, this" "so selfish!" "supposed to do?" Rix decided they weren't really talking to her, so she waited for them to lose steam.

An elf who had been on the council since before Rix's parents were born spoke up, cutting through the frantic chatter. "Enough!"

Standing up, he continued. "I can reach no other conclusion than that there has been a mistake."

Rix didn't contradict him. Frankly, she agreed, but as she'd already pointed out: if she refused to go, she would be divested of her power. Either way, they would lose their friendly neighborhood warlock. Perhaps the library would take me back, she imagined before stamping the thought out.

"Until this has been sorted out, I'm afraid we cannot allow you to leave. Sentry, please escort Ms. Estarl to a holding cell. Make sure the commander knows she has committed no crime." At least they're looking out for my reputation, she smirked to herself as a guard gallantly offered his arm.

Without windows, Rix was unsure of the time. She was locked in (she'd checked), but they hadn't felt the need to leave someone to watch her. All she had to entertain herself was the bell, which she'd slipped into a pocket before leaving her apartment that morning. Nothing she did could possibly make her situation more absurd, she thought. She rang the bell.