The library was a labyrinth, and Chae was the minotaur.

She did not know what she was looking for. Reading had never been a particular fondness of hers, in the vague before-life that she remembered in dreams. But she knew that there were many things she did not know, things that she needed to know if she wanted to survive in this new world, things that could only be learned from hidden words in forgotten tomes. This was only her first sojourn into such a place, and what a place it was.

Shelves upon shelves of books rose up from wide lanes of marble flooring, split into stories by elegantly carved balconies for prime access to any level. Some framed tall windows, others cradled cozy groves of chairs and tables. Aisles of books curved around each other with a wizard’s intuition—which is to say their design and organization made no sense to the wandering witch. At first Chae tried to keep track of the low hanging chandeliers or fairy-fire braziers that interspersed the tortuous lanes, but they were as identical as the books themselves.

Ultimately she allowed herself to be lost, pulling leather bound spines at random from the short selection which her halfling form could reach. She frowned at the pages as she walked, paying little heed to her path as she made sense of the words. Inevitably she would become frustrated, putting away the book where it did not belong and replacing it with another, equally haphazard choice.

How would she ever find the right one? Maybe it didn’t matter. She had an eternity to look.

As far as Chae was concerned, she was no different than any of the other studious mages or gaping tourists that perused the great hall. Her stature was small and her face was thin and seemingly starved, but she was dressed finely enough; her fraying hair was pulled in to a presentable bun and her slippers made little noise as she walked. It was, perhaps, expected that eventually she would be torn from her tattered threads of thought by a sudden impact. What might have been a politely excused bump on a human-sized person sent the little lich tumbling to the ground, nearly kicked from the slick marble alongside the big heavy book in her arms.

“How dare—” she growled reflexively, then stopped when she saw who it was that had knocked her down.

Tacitus Silanus was far away from his cave home. Silanus was walking fast, looking everywhere with an odd simile in his face. While travelling, he often whispered to himself the same words over and over. "None shall cross my path, mercy is sand and my weapon is the ocean. None shall fear, alias I'll lure the coward to the edge of my sword…" 

Silanus was carry an old journal covered with blood. He found that journal on the corpse from the mage he had recently killed in the wilderness. That journal spoke of a far far away library, but not a normal library… This library had millions of secrets of the magical and mysterius arcane arts… Silanus was each time closer to that place, and he was finally infront of the it. He sang with euphoria: "Stab, slash, dust over here, crush, crash, a mage's head there! Good Silanus is going on a raid, with his sword and shield, Silanus will triumph! Flames and agony will surround the PLACE!"

Silanus tried to not look suspicious when he entered the library. He grabbed and tore apart some books while laughting loudly, then he said: "oh, nonono NO! Poor Silanus cannot laugh, if he does stupid ugly spellcasters will use their shiny magic on HIM!" His constant talking could be heard all over the hall.

The others had their magic primed, ready to remove the menace from their midst. But Chae got to him first, for she was the closest; he had knocked her down in his rampage, and seemed to have stepped over her without a second thought.

“Quiet!” She commanded, bringing up a hand. Instead of whatever meager attack her tiny form could attempt, her splayed fingers threw an unholy spell at this throat. Her magic pressed on his airways, strangling him momentarily. He seemed to have the strength to shake her little hex with haste, but at least she would have a moment to get a word in edgewise. “You will leave this place, if you know what is good for you.”

With that she stood, in all her three-and-a-half-foot glory, the books she had collected spilled around her feet. The shadows between them seemed to flicker and move with new magic, more a display of her power than an actual threat of violence.

Silanus flinched he recieved the spell; he swinged his sword at the air a few times. Then he dropped his shield and said with a quiet, sinister voice: "Ohhh, what do we have heeere? A womaan, ohh and she has a loud voice… Silanus HATES when people yell at him, he will NOT allow further insolence!" Silanus sheated his sword and slowly walked towards Chae. He picked up a book she had dropped and opened it. "Ohhh, lots and looots of words. Who knows what words we have here… Maybe it´s a SEEECRET!" As the intruder started to read the book he giggled, and said once again: "Magic… Why is there a MAGIC book in a MAGIC library? Ohh, how ironic; I would have neever expected that. Maybe we need less magic books and more steel WEAPONS! Oh, that´s right." Silanus kept in silence for some time when he finished talking.

Silanus touched Chae´s hair and said once again: "I guess this hair is MAAGIC, right? Everything here in this FILTHY, UGLY, STUPID library is magic. I can even SMELL magic! Ohh, look at how many people are looking at me. I feel so important…" Silanus threw the book away, unsheated his sword and quickly swinged it, slashing the lich´s little curls. As Silanus watched the hair slowly falling to the ground, he started to dance excitedly. "Slash-slash-slash! How fun it is to slash!"

(Sorry if the answer is a little short but I am in mobile and it is slower to write :L

The hair fell away without ceremony, floating down to the rubble of pages Silanus had left in his oblivious wake. Chae did not flinch, nor take her eyes off of the intruder. Her dead skin peeled away from her knuckles as her little fists tightened over her fraying impatience. The worst part was that no one else was doing anything. They were mages and scholars and, apparently, cowards. They hid behind their books–literally, the books in their cases like walls between their squishy bodies and this terrible violence.

But what else could they do? He had a sword!

Suddenly the stench of magic increased tenfold. Like the strange odor of ash at the start of a wildfire, Chae summoned a portal just on the other side of Silanus. It flailed in place like a tear in the fabric of space, revealing an image of another place, another somewhere in the world. The energy of it charged the air around them, sparking courage in the others. They began to emerge from their hiding places, muttering and organizing. There was talk of guards.

"You are not wanted here," Chae explained. She didn't need to overpower him, not entirely. All she needed was a good push, to get him out. So the halfling lunged for him, little hands reaching for some sleeve or belt to hang onto as she tried to drag him to the other side.

((OOC: If you choose to make him fall in, feel free to make the gate lead where ever you like.))

Silanus was looking at the big bookshelves while Chae was behind him, summoning the magical gate. The "soldier" grabbed a book and throwed it away, trying to anger her. He saw the portal and quickly turned around just when she was charging, ready to push him. 

Silanus didn't slash her, or just punched her… He had a greater plan; Silanus grabbed Chae's arm right when she pushed him and pulled her… Silanus' plan worked! They both entered inside the gate.

The magical portal lead to the mountains of Zujiuchu, inside the continent of Parvpora. They both arrived on the top of one of the big mountains, Silanus stood up and said with arrogance: "Weren't expecting that, were you? HAH! Did you really think that would be a good idea? Hmph, mindless full! Silanus is full of surprises!" 

There was a grasp and a lurch, and then she was falling, and there was soft grass beneath her hands and the smell of pine and rain. The magic of her portal had celebrated her crossing, sparking with the happy success of a completed spell. It cracked and flared with a noise that even the magically-challenged soldier might perceive, and then it shriveled out of existence. The warm shuffle of paper turned to cold air, the murmur of the city drawn into the thin silence of altitude. A low fog rolled in the valleys below them, leaving only the mountaintop to hold them beneath the cloudy sky. Chae groaned.

The lich was a little further from her phylactery than she was in the city, and it showed on her face: her gaunt face sank and even began to rot at the edges, the skin sloughing limply from her thin muscles. Her lips curled away from her teeth as she looked up at the man who he brought her here. It was entirely his fault. She had fallen on her hands and knees; after a brief moment to reorient, she stood.

“Surprises, surprises,” she mumbled, little fists at the ends of her stiff arms. She was pacing. “Things as they are are not how they should be. I had a plan. I have a mission. You could not possibly understand. You live in a small world with your… your big sword. Agh!”

She threw her arm at him as she voiced her frustration (and truly, it nearly flew from the socket). A dense bullet of arcane energy flew from her hand, trailing blue and red sparks as it rocketed toward Silanus. There was anger in the gesture, and no one to take it out on except for this crazed stranger. Determining that it would make her feel better if he were dead, she turned around and shot another magic arrow at his heart.

Silanus was calmed, smiling happily while looking at his own reflex in his shiny sword. When she started to yell at him, his smile turned into a serious, not very calmed face and he answered: "What are you talking about? Uh? Big sword? Silanus´sword is not big, are you blind or just clumsly? Silanus´sword is PERFECT! Oh, perfect, not as your pale face… Shall I say that was a good burn…?" Silanus could not even finish mocking her, as Chae fired an energy bullet. The portal that she opened in the library sucked his shield among some other small objects that were on the floor, for example dust or just books. The warrior quickly picked up his shield and blocked her first blast, but he was not aware that his rival was preparing a magical arrow to pierce his heart…

Silanus continued mocking Chae: "Wooooaaah what a blaaast! It did not even scratch Silanus shield! How arcane! How MAGIC!´What is your mission you were talking about? Training to shoot better? Because you should! Ha-ha!" Silanus started to laugh wildly, he even lowered his guard. When the lich shot the magical arrow, it hit again his big shield, but this time it pierced it, leaving a big hole; the arrow hit his chestplate too, however, it was not strong enough to pierce it like it did to the shield. Even if the arrow didn´t even touch his skin, the impact was strong, thrusting him some meters away…  

Chae followed the soldier’s body as it flew away, marching over slippery grasses and large rocks to see what her arrow had made of him. She saw the books that had been summoned to this place alongside them, even paused to consider piling them up nicely for safekeeping, but she was still seeing too much red to bother with those now. At least she could put herself between the precious pages and the man’s destructive streak, while she killed him properly.

“Training to destroy ignorant, ungrateful peons like you!” She replied, and if she was not dried to the bone she might have spat the words.

With an elaborate gesture and a brief but low chant, a dark circle appeared around Silanus’s prone body. A moment later, the circle began to smoke and ignite with a fell green flame, hellfire itself consuming the ether with a crackling hunger. Slowly the flames would edge inward, groping blindly but surely for the life force at the center. And though her attention was dominated by the spell, her eyes remained on the swordsman and his sword. He would make a good thrall, once his soul had left his body.