Prologue - Scribble
The lights of the lamp flicked once then twice as the sound of scribbling drew on the surrounding, breaking the silence of the night. In the darkest hours while the whole world slept in peace, a man was still awake, sited on his wooden chair unaware of his surroundings, dipped his quill pen in the ink, and scribbled on a papyrus. His hand was moving at an intense speed making the writing disorganized and difficult to understand, yet without caring for these details he continued. He dipped the quill and wrote until it ran out of ink, then he dipped again and wrote again and again filling page after page of papyrus. A cold wind blew through the window chilling the old bones of the man. The white hairs on his arms stood up and his body trembled from the cold, yet he continued. Ignoring the cold night and his old body he kept on writing desperately as if this has to be done now, no matter what.
The chirping sound of the birds demarcated the rising of the sun and the passage of the night. Most of the people woke up from their sleep and prepared for their day, tidied things up, and went out for their work. One such young man was Tilo, he is a 23-year-old scholar currently staying with the great sage in the High-sky mountain peak to further his studies. He has traveled far and wide in the pursuit of knowledge and finally stumbled upon the master he earned for. With great efforts, he finally convinced the great sage to take him as a disciple despite his old age. He was acknowledged and has been studying various aspects of life and death for the past half a year.
Like every day he prepared breakfast and warm water for his master and was waiting for him. Time passed, yet his always punctual teacher was nowhere to be seen. This was unusual for the great sage not to be in time for breakfast, fearing something has happened he ran towards the cottage where the sage lived. “master master,” he shouted as he banged on the bamboo door. Even after a while of calling no response came from the other side. Tilo’s expression darkened as anxiety filled him, he asked for forgiveness and tried to break into the room. The bamboo door finally cracked and broke open reviling a white-haired old man sitting on a chair with his right arm resting on the desk in front of him and his left arm holding a phoenix feather quill still pined onto a papyrus. He was anxious and nervous as he walked near the old man observing the strange stillness in the room. His hands were frozen and his eyes remain wide open. The great sage the wisest of them all the sorcerer king the maker of history the sear of the future the all-knowing and benevolent, the protector and guardian of humanity have passed away, frozen solid by cold while still holding the warmest phoenix feather and a pile of papyrus on his desk filled with his last words.
The great sage has written hundreds of pages filled with scribbles in his last moments, which were collected and made into a book by his last and said to be the most genius disciple Tilo. After cremating his master’s corpse, he collected the remains and went into seclusion to decipher the meaning of the text left in the book. It took him nearly a year to understand the essence of the book. After understanding the message written in the book, Tilo came out of his seclusion it is said that he left the mountains never to be seen again. Many sages and scholars have tried to search for the book time and time again in the hopes of gaining the ultimate wisdom passed down by the great sage. With the passage of time and the curiosity of the people gave rise to many myths surrounding the book. Even some kings and emperors also became interested in this seemingly all-knowing book, lost in the passage of time. With each passing year, the scribbles of the dying old man have become the most revered treasure that every knowledgeable person on the continent ever wanted. As humanity’s search for knowledge continued so did the story of THE LOST BOOK.
