[PRP] Reading Rainbow (Torgus/Mahir)

[Ravvlet]

Torgus approached the table with extreme caution, hand at his hip and ready to summon his weapon at a moment's notice. The subject of his ire lay draped languidly across one of the library's many workstations. So plain, so pristine, so innocent. The war horseman wasn't fooled, however. They said knowledge was power, after all, and what could hold more knowledge than a book?

A gentle breeze wafted by, and a page idly rustled -

It was much harder to read the words trapped on the pages of the tome with his knife through the middle of it, but Torgus considered it a necessary precaution. He didn't want all that nonsense trying to wriggle free, after all. Not before he'd had a chance to absorb the information himself. The book's spine groaned in protest as he pressed it flat, peering at the text greedily.

He was going to be famous one day, he was sure of it. All the clansmen would know his power and kneel before him. He just needed a little something, a dash of heroism with a touch of bravery and adventure.

He was going on a quest.

What better book to read, Torgus thought proudly, than Questing For Dummies: An Adventurer's Guide to Misadventure?  

[Molten Tigrex]

There was a rustle of pages near Torgus, followed by the appearance of a very distinctly small and slightly insane famine horseman.

Mahir was also discovering the joy of books, and had one beside him on the floor. Unlike Torgus who had only stabbed a book, Mahir seemed to be making use of the sacred knowledge in the library by... ripping out pages and folding them into paper creatures. He had already amassed quite a zoo of them, each uniquely terrible. The handful of eyes along the cover's edge begged Torgus for death.

"Greetingsss," Mahir waved at the war horseman with several shadowy arms. The others were preoccupied with folding some sort of paper octopus.

"Ssso much ink and bark gone to waste. I could have made a very niccce potion with this." Mahir poked at his half-hollowed out book with one foot. Spotting the dagger sticking out of Torgus's, he began to slink toward the table. He looked at the book with curious eyes that had no idea what the words on the pages meant. "Are these 'booksss' creaturesss to be ssslain?"  

[Ravvlet]

"No," Torgus replied cheerfully, eyeing the other horseman's paper-animal-army with glowing appreciation. "That is, sorta. Y'see, books contain knowledge, and knowledge is power."

"Although," he added, tapping the side of his nose thoughtfully, "I'll bet drinking 'em would be faster than reading."

If the other horseman's shadow arms unsettled him, it wasn't immediately apparent. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean t' be rude. M'name's Torgus. Of the War clan." He laid a hand on the book gingerly, careful not to disturb the knife that pinned it to the table. "An' with the help o' this, someday I might even be Torgus the Mighty."  

[Molten Tigrex]

The horseman seemed eager to listen to everything Torgus had to say, regarding him much the same way as a child listening to a story. The paper animals were abandoned in an instant. "A worthy goal!"

"I am Mahir, of the Famine clan," he added after a time, looking between Torgus the Soon-To-Be-Mighty and his book of secrets expectantly. He grinned widely, a row of interlocking razor teeth. "What does it tell you?"

A few thin shadow hands had slithered across the surface of the table, and across the book, as if they could absorb the information simply by touching the words on the page.

They couldn't.  

[Ravvlet]

"Well, it says here," he indicated with a finger, squinting at the page and sticking his tongue out a bit as he concentrated, "that the key to adventuring, is like, to go on a QUEST."

He emphasized the last word, dropping the pitch of his voice so that it would sound deeper and therefore more important. He yanked his machete out of the book and set it aside, thumbing back through to the index.

"I already skimmed it earlier," he hadn't, "and the most important part -" it wasn't "- is here." After referencing the back briefly, he turned to a chapter entitled, 'SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ADVENTURER'. And, by some stroke of luck slash genius slash luck, a slip of paper was wedged into the book's pages. A paper, that, when unfolded, revealed a map, and a few key notes.

Across the top was written 'DON'T FORGET THIS PAGE, VERY IMPORTANT'.

"That's the ticket!" he exclaimed.

The best kind of work, he felt, was when someone else did it for him.