The other day, Mandel mentioned the Library of History. I did some research and found that it’s quite the institution! The structural and architectural designs were contributed to by an ancestor of Thomas Aquilo, himself. More specifically, the Great War’s hero’s grandma! For over two centuries, it’s amassed a wealth of knowledge and lore from the four corners of the earth and at least five of the unknown regions.

It also contains the original manuscript for Taldor, the Ill-Fated Lover, who supposedly passed away five centuries ago. It’s a common Cardellan bedtime story. The story goes that Taldor, a young elf, ventures into Cardel from the unknown lands. Wanting to disprove his father’s belief that humans are greedy, shallow individuals, he attempts to court a human girl.

The first girl he tries is a simple Peluvan girl. Beautiful and from a small family… of demons who prey on the misfortunate travelers along the Apallian road. Taldor remains unaware of this until one day, in an inn on a date, he mishears the girl asking for a glass of dragon’s ale. In truth, the girl is asking for a ‘flagon’ of bombeer ale. The dragon’s ale reveals the girl’s true form and it chases Taldor across the entire town. Taldor is saved by a demon hunter, a woman by the name of Eldora.

Taldor falls head-over-heels in love with Eldora, and makes various attempts to court her. Eldora remains uninterested, much to his dismay. After spending a month, Taldor decides to rid his mind of her and takes a ship to the Alfor nations – now known as Eagleon. Here, he immerses himself in element studies for a year and takes a position at the local university as a teacher. To his dismay, Eldora shows up to his first class on element alchemy.

Taldor ignores Eldora and treats her with the utmost professionalism. Eldora (who has just gotten over a personal problem), however, sees the more mature Taldor, and attempts to gain his attention. Taldor rebuffs her various attempts and becomes annoyed when she boldly invites him to go demon hunting with her. The young elf-man scoffs at her poor idea of a romantic outing and insults her as a shallow and greedy woman. He is promptly rewarded with a heavy-handed slap on the face.

Taldor spends the next week reflecting on what has happened and realizes that he is being shallow by not giving Eldora a chance. He invites her out to have a drink and both reflect on how they have grown in the past year. Taldor accepts Eldora’s invitation to go hunting and they both begin to travel and have adventures around the globe. Years later, they marry in Taldor’s family castle.

Well, that was quite a story! The actual text is more comedic than my concise version, and I hope to read it in full. It’s just a story, though. I mean, really, whose love life is that crazy?