Book (0), The Prologue To A Thousand Stories

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  Books of all shapes, sizes, and colors lay upon the atrium’s gray tile floors, and where they don’t lay on the floor they are carefully placed upon towering black bookshelves with rose vines lovingly carved into them.

  A light shines through the atrium, filling in everything with color despite the fact that there is no visible source for it, and the shadows linger in such a way that the direction they come from cannot be determined.

  Just past this light exists a foggy darkness where anything can linger and lurk, a shifting of shadows stating quite clearly that something is doing just that.

  That something’s eyes stare for but a moment before disappearing.

  “Hello there!” A cheery voice greeted, revealing a young dark haired woman that had most certainly not been there just a few seconds prior. “You’re looking a little… lost, is there something I can do to help you?”

  The young woman waits for an answer, but none comes forth.

  “Ah, I see… You’re dreaming not Dreaming…” The young woman frowned, looking a little disappointed, a look that slowly shifted into curiosity. “If you’re not a guest, then I wonder how you wandered into here?”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Once more there was no answer to the young woman’s question, but this time she was significantly less concerned by this fact.

  “You must really like reading if you made it here… Hmm…” The young woman crossed her arms and began tapping her head while mumbling, “Thinking… Thinking… Thinking…”

  The young woman’s eyes suddenly burst open as she grew an excited smile. “Oh! That’s an idea! Hold on just one moment please!”

  With that request stated, the young woman ran off, disappearing into the darkness just past the atrium’s lights.

  “Here you are!” The young woman called from behind, appearing opposite the direction she’d left via not one second later with a flyer in hand. “I know you can’t really answer me right now because you're just dreaming, but I figured if you’re here then that means you must really like stories! And well I could really use a bit more help around here… so if you want maybe you could think about working here at the library where you can get as many stories as you want! Maybe, if you want, pretty please?”

  The young woman held the flyer out for a moment, the words upon it a jumbled mess, before hitting her knuckles on her head. “Oh right, of course you can’t read the flyer humans can’t read in their dreams…” She sighed, before mumbling a quiet, “I always forget that…”

  Not letting this miscalculation get her down, the young woman coughed into her hand. “Alright, well since I can’t really hand this to you now, I’ll send it to you! The library’s delivery boy, is the goodest boi in all of the Black Briar!”

  The young woman gave an embarrassed look. “I just, uh, need to figure out who you are first…”

  A/N: Okay, so for people new to my stories I like to do 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Quests. Meaning that a lot of the time I'll ask for reader input on stuff. Now I've a tendency to run my stories on other sites where this is more common, but once caught up I bring most of the choices here as well. (Royal Roads Poll system is not good for shopping trips.)

  So with that in mind after each chapter I'll present the choice that Readers had, for anyone who wants to see what their options were. Like this one:

  Who are you? (Choose our starting character.)

  []-The Exhausted War Veteran

  -Starting Deck: Smoke of War (Spell Focus)

  -Library Days: Early (1-2 Existing Librarians), High Library Development Influence.

  []-The Runaway Dark One

  -Starting Deck: Familiar Darkness (Minion Focus)

  -Library Days: Mid (3-4 Existing Librarians), Mid-Library Development Influence.

  []-The Normal College Student

  -Starting Deck: Black Briar Basics (Mixed Focus)

  -Library Days: Late (5-6 Existing Librarians), Low Library Development Influence.