The Old Man's Tome

by Squag

Hello, and Welcome, my dear reader. It seems you have found the courage to finally dust off the oldest tome you could find in that library of yours and begun to read. If not, these words, and my story, would be lost to time. Inquire within to read of adventure, sorcery, peril, and danger, the fainthearted need not apply. Join me friend, for the tale of a lifetime Geowine, A Wizard

Authors Note: Hello! I personally want to thank you for giving my story a read! This is one of the firs tales i have ever told to anyone, so I am bound to be rusty. Important thing to know, as I lack a medium other than this website to publish my stories and most likely have them read, this story will bear very little resemblance to the Harry Potter world, and will instead focus on our dear narrator, and his adventures of his life. However, there will of course be magic and other great things to be found by reading, so please, join me in this adventure! I will write more and update as soon as I can, and will be releasing in a chapter format. Feel free to leave constructive criticism! -Squag

In a small country near the sea there stands a house that seems to be as old as the
Earth itself, but at the very least, it has stood for as long as anyone in a small town nearby could remember. The people who live in the small town not three miles away can take a small walk to see that the house stands above the sea not ten feet from a cliff that is more than a thirty feet drop if you were to accidentally fall off. Locals do not fear the house, no, but no one will set foot within twenty feet of the place, much less enter the house itself, unless in some grave emergency. To my dear reader, yourself most likely, or perhaps someone looking over your shoulder that you have not noticed until very recently, it would seem that you have most likely begun picturing a decrepit, ruinous little shack that stood alone by itself in some dismal area of gray rock with overgrown weeds, with a strange aura surrounding said house. To be frank, you are very quick to judge and I disapprove of that, but if you have another picture in your mind, i say that I very much approve of the picture in your head, as long as it is the same as mine. Oh dear me, it has come to my attention that i have not even begun to describe the looks of the same house that I am trying to paint a picture in your mind for! My apologies to those I may have insulted earlier with my comment about me disapproving of your mental picture. As I was saying, the house was built precariously close to the same cliff described earlier, and any poor soul who lost their footing near the edge would most likely find themselves seconds later drenched by the sea water below. However, one would seldom need get close to the edge of the cliff due to the fact that many were immediately transfixed by the mystery of the house itself! Oh I wish i could share my very sight of this house with you, my dear reader, but alas, that is not how stories work, do they? The house stood neither tall nor squat, but a perfect one story with what appears to strangers as a glass dome in the very middle of its rather pointy roof. The roof itself came from the sides of the house in two very sharp upward slopes, meeting at the tips of the end of their respective sides, mind you of course except for the dome in the middle. There was a brick chimney that protruded from one of the long ends of the house on the left side, if you were to be facing the front door, that is. It would be facing your right side if you were standing facing the garden in the back of the house, or you would not see it at all, since you would trying to stay afloat, because maybe you happened to be staring at the house from the back near the cliff, and you lost track of where your feet were, and unceremoniously fell. But if that is not the case, I applaud you for your impeccable self-awareness and caution! As I was before describing, the chimney always seemed to be emitting smoke, like some never ending fire was constantly burning in the fireplace inside, or perhaps someone has a very bad habit of tending to a pipe which he cannot seem to quit, and sits directly in the fireplace constantly smoking. This is not the case, but it is not impossible, and remember my dear reader, nearly nothing is impossible. Except of course not enjoying a cool beverage on a hot July's day! Unless of course if you are dead, but I find that highly unlikely right now since the deceased cannot read and you can. Poor souls, it must be awfully boring lying beneath the earth day after day. Anyways, apart from the chimney, the house itself was brick, but no brick was of the same color. The bricks stand out in their marvelous shades of red and oranges, some gray, and one or two bricks as black as night itself, but of course of different shades, such as looking at night just at twilight or in the pitch black of the middle of the night when you are staggering back home from a bit of fun at your local tavern. The bricks themselves, however, are of little marvel compared to the windows and the front door! Oh the windows! You'd have never seen such lovely stained glass before in your life, not even the windows you'd find in the grandest cathedrals in the world could hold a candle to them There are two perfectly round windows on either side of the front door, which is placed in the middle of the front wall of the house as the dome was, mind you that. Each window itself seems to have taken a lifetime to make, as each were beautifully constructed from small individual pieces of glass, long ago. Oh what wonders they are! It seems that every inch of the windows had a new story to tell. So many noble faces on horseback, mythical creatures, depictions of battles, kings on their thrones, and even strange people from far away lands can all be found on these windows, and you could get lost in their silent stories for hours on end. However if you are strong enough to take your gaze off of the windows for a mere moment, you may notice the front door itself. Oh the door...how I wish you could see it for yourself, you will be most likely just as enamored with it than the windows! The door itself is made of yew, probably taken from the wide, overgrown tree not ten feet from the house's right side with a suspicious missing patch of wood on the ancient plant itself. But to cease talking about that infernal tree, mind you I have plenty to say about that to come, let us draw our attention back to the door. The door itself is no more than seven feet high, with a sturdy iron handle that you must pull to enter the house. But if you just glimpse at the carvings on the outside of the door, oh goodness me, you will surely say you have seen truly no other finer work of art . The carving in the center of the door is a great tree of oak, perhaps in need of a bit of limbing I must say , but otherwise truly great. Beside the tree on the left side, well at least right now, is a sun beginning to set, and moving down on the wood near the roots of the tree fractions of an inch every second. I know what you are beginning to think, that that may be impossible, and carvings on the wood cannot move. But is that not more fascinating than the windows? Carvings that move themselves? You must be intrigued at this point, as you have read this far. If not, you would most likely have closed this book and tossed it aside, rendering my further written words as meaningless to you as you go about your day. It would seem however that you have not, in fact, shut this book yet since you are continuing to read these words, and I thank you for that truly. But to return our former focus point back to the door, you must wonder who could have created a marvel such as this? Well, why don't I introduce you to him. If you happened to pull on the iron handle and enter the house, you may see a man dressed in an ill-fitting brown robe and a strange, pointed hat sitting at a wooden table seated on a tree stump, writing the very book you are reading now. That is where I come in, my dear, beloved reader. My name is Geowine, and I am what you may call, a Wizard.