Nashjej'ha Library
Nashjej'ha Library is a vast hidden repository concealed within the small town of Ar'thur. It holds practical manuals, religious texts, royal records, ancient Lamian histories, maps, genealogies, magical treatises, and rare works collected over many centuries. The library appears to be an ordinary scholarly institution from the outside, but its public rooms conceal a much larger archive beneath the town. Its most important possession is the only surviving copy of The Last Sons, a historical account describing why the male Lamia became extinct and how Rithris, the Honest Reaper, acted to preserve her people from the Szithan Empire. The library is maintained by a small circle of archivists who have hidden the most dangerous truths behind false catalog records and layers of preservation magic.
Nashjej'ha Library
Quiet, cool, and watchful. The air smells of dust, cedar oil, lamp smoke, and old paper. Sunlight enters the reading rooms in narrow golden strips, while the lower archives remain dim and almost airless. Visitors often feel that conversations are being overheard, not because the staff are openly suspicious, but because every archivist seems to know who has entered, what they requested, and how long they remained. Despite the tension, the library offers a rare feeling of safety to anyone who genuinely values learning.
Nashjej'ha Library is a vast hidden repository concealed within the small town of Ar'thur. It holds practical manuals, religious texts, royal records, ancient Lamian histories, maps, genealogies, magical treatises, and rare works collected over many centuries. The library appears to be an ordinary scholarly institution from the outside, but its public rooms conceal a much larger archive beneath the town. Its most important possession is the only surviving copy of The Last Sons, a historical account describing why the male Lamia became extinct and how Rithris, the Honest Reaper, acted to preserve her people from the Szithan Empire. The library is maintained by a small circle of archivists who have hidden the most dangerous truths behind false catalog records and layers of preservation magic.
Patient, disciplined, observant, and quietly fierce. Maresh speaks softly and rarely threatens anyone, but she has spent decades making difficult choices about which people and books can be saved. She believes knowledge belongs to the living, not to rulers, and will risk the library rather than surrender the truth about the Lamia.
History
Rare Tomes and Restricted Collections
The library’s most protected collection is kept in the Deep Stacks, a set of stone rooms beneath the main building. It contains Lamian genealogies, temple records, medical writings, pre-Szithan maps, treaties, and personal accounts from the final centuries before the male Lamia vanished. The central work is called The Last Sons, the only surviving account that explains what truly happened. It was written by Sera Vey, a Lamian temple historian who recorded Rithris’s warning, the body-changing rite, the extinction of the male Lamia, and the goddess’s separation from Bolton. The book is not enchanted, but its pages are protected by layered wards that alert the archivists when opened by someone who intends to destroy or remove it.
Access and Library Rules
Visitors may freely consult histories, mathematics, agriculture, law, navigation, languages, and practical spellcraft in the public reading rooms. Access to the Deep Stacks requires permission from the chief archivist, a signed reason for the request, and either a respected local sponsor or proof that the reader is not acting for the Szithan Empire. Imperial officials technically possess the right to inspect the collection, but the library’s charter predates the occupation and gives its archivists broad authority to protect fragile works. A request for Lamian religious records is treated as a serious matter and usually draws the attention of several hidden watchers.
Security and Preservation
The library is defended through mundane precautions rather than obvious traps. Every door to the Deep Stacks bears a different seal, and the archivists memorize which seal belongs to which room. False catalog entries direct unwelcome investigators toward copies, damaged fragments, or harmless devotional texts. A set of brass chimes rings silently through the building when a restricted door is forced. The library also maintains an emergency route into an old cistern beneath Ar'thur, allowing its staff to move books or people out of the building during a raid. The wards are designed to preserve knowledge, not kill intruders, though determined thieves may still be trapped in rooms that slowly fill with soporific incense.
Daily Work and Local Support
The library employs scribes, translators, restorers, and part-time tutors for the town’s children. Its staff repair damaged bindings with river-reed paper, seal moldy pages in cedar cases, and maintain a careful record of every book that enters or leaves the building. Several local families quietly provide food, lamp oil, and hiding places for the archivists. Since the Szithan occupation began, the library has also become a meeting place for Lamian traditionalists, smugglers of cultural artifacts, and scholars who believe the truth about Rithris must survive even if the town does not.
Denizens
Patient, disciplined, observant, and quietly fierce. Maresh speaks softly and rarely threatens anyone, but she has spent decades making difficult choices about which people and books can be saved. She believes knowledge belongs to the living, not to rulers, and will risk the library rather than surrender the truth about the Lamia.
An elderly Lamian woman who walks with a carved cane and remembers the library’s secret procedures by heart. She is patient with honest scholars but becomes cold and immovable when anyone asks about the Deep Stacks without understanding the danger. Maresh keeps the true key to The Last Sons hidden inside her cane.
A former Szithan census clerk who defected after discovering that Imperial officials were altering population records to erase conquered peoples. He handles public requests, watches for informants, and can identify most Imperial seals and bureaucratic tricks. He is practical, nervous, and deeply loyal to Maresh.
A young Lamian restorer with a remarkable memory for text and handwriting. She has repaired several damaged pages of The Last Sons and suspects that one section was deliberately removed before the book reached the library. Nera wants to find the missing passage, believing it may explain how Rithris and Bolton can be reunited.
A River Elf scholar assigned by the Szithan Empire to inspect the library’s holdings. He presents himself as courteous and scholarly, but his reports have already led to the seizure of several Lamian religious works. Jorren privately doubts the official Szithan account of history and may be persuaded to help if shown undeniable evidence.
A retired Lamian temple guard who lives in a small room above the restoration workshop. She trains trusted visitors in the use of the evacuation passage and quietly carries messages between the library and resistance supporters in Ar'thur. She distrusts adventurers until they prove they can protect people as well as books.
Rumors & Plot Hooks
- 1.The library has a book that proves the Szithan Empire’s official history is false, but no one agrees on whether the book is hidden beneath the building or already smuggled out of Ar'thur.
- 2.A sealed room beneath the library contains the preserved body of a male Lamia, kept alive by an ancient spell until the time foretold by Rithris.
- 3.The Serpent Court’s dry fountain fills with water during the new moon, and anyone who drinks from it dreams of a place where Rithris and Bolton are reunited.
- 4.An Imperial inspector vanished after entering the lower archives. Some claim the library killed him, while others say he found a secret exit and fled the Empire.
- 5.Several books in the public catalog are actually coded messages for Lamian families, resistance agents, and scholars hiding across Szithan territory.
- 6.A missing page from The Last Sons was taken by a former archivist who believed the truth should be revealed immediately, even if doing so brought the Empire down on Ar'thur.
- 7.The library’s oldest maps show a road leading to a forgotten Lamian sanctuary where the final rite of Rithris may still be performed.
Classified Entry
The Last Sons contains the truth about the male Lamia, but it also includes a hidden final section written in a different hand. The section states that Rithris did not merely alter Lamian births. Before separating from Bolton, she placed a dormant blessing in the blood of every living Lamia. When the Szithan threat is truly ended, the blessing can be awakened through a reunion of Rithris and Bolton, allowing male Lamia to be born again. The rite requires three things: the original account of the transformation, a relic belonging to Rithris, and a living descendant who freely chooses to carry the blessing forward. The library possesses the account and secretly knows the location of Rithris’s relic, but the relic itself was taken decades ago by agents of the Imperial Archive of Anasesath. Maresh has never revealed this because she fears the Empire would use the information to hunt every Lamian settlement and manipulate the rite for its own purposes.
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