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Christoph Schrader
Joined 11 June 2011
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== | ==Christoph Reports== | ||
''A set of letters written to Christoph's future friend Annette, the Christoph Reports were unearthed during the excavation of a city surrounded by a dead forest that has come to be called "The City of Lights" after the name mentioned in these letters. It is believed that the author was Christoph IX von Schrader, the thirteenth governor of the city, and that his son was responsible for its collapse sometime after.'' | |||
===Christoph Report I=== | |||
''On the instruction of his governess, to whom he simply refers as ''Madame'', Christoph writes to his future friend Annette to tell her about himself and his home, the City of Lights, and expresses the hope that she will like him''. | |||
Dear Annette, | |||
I live in the City of Light — I believe it is very far to the east of where you live — and everything here works through magitechnology: we use magic like other people use steam and coal and electricity, or so Madame (my governess) tells me. I have never really seen any of those things, however, except in the pictures in books — Madame tells me that you live far away in a place called —————, and that if I write to you and we become friends, that you will come and live with us here someday. I hope you will like it here — the city is so pretty in the morning with all the trees covered in dew, and the sky turns to silver when the sun is just about to appear, though the forests are even better. Our city is surrounded by forests — papa says that this one is filled with white birches, and that rare flowers grow there, though I have never really seen any (papa says that is because they are rare, even around here, and so I must be patient and happy to see them only in my books until I should chance to find one). | |||
When I go out into the forest, I always take my favourite books, and I love to read in the trees until nightfall, when the birds begin to sing (papa says that they are called nightingleams, and that they only live around here, but that, when the moon has a halo about it, their queen will appear and sing for everyone). Madame does not like this — she says that the governor’s son must conduct himself in a dignified manner, and she is really mad whenever she finds that papa has come with me to read, but she is afraid to scold him. Papa tells me that the forest is a beautiful place and that it is the city’s duty to protect it, and that I will one day have to be the governor, but I don’t really want to — I want to study magic. Papa almost did, but he told me that when his older brother died without an heir, that he had to take over or the city would have fallen in some sort of war that happened a long time ago. He told me that I could read about it when I am older, though I want to know now. | |||
Madame says that you live on an island far away, but the only island I have ever seen is one on a lake in the middle on the forest — there seems to be some sort of house on it, but no one ever seems to go there. Papa says that I can’t swim in the lake because there is some sort of magic in it that he says would turn me into a different person, and that this water was what the people attacking the city wanted, though he won’t tell me what it really does. He also says that the forest protects our city, though he never told me what against, and that without it, the mountains would stop it from raining here — I still don’t understand how a forest can make it rain, but I still want to study magic. Papa says that he will send me to school so that I can, but that since mama went away he can’t have anymore children, and that I will have to become the city’s governor when he is gone. I know that mama isn’t coming back, although I visit her every day after my lessons before I go out to read — papa sometimes comes with me, though he always has so much to do, because running a city is so hard. | |||
I have just finished reading a book about a man who was imprisoned by his jealous friends in a terrible castle for so long, only to find an old man who taught him so much that he turned himself into a perfect gentleman. The old man then left him an immense amount of wealth hidden on an island, which he used to save those he cared about who had fallen into distress, and also to try to take revenge upon those who had put him there. I was really sad when I found out that his true love had married someone else, but a girl he saved from being a slave fell in love with him — she was some sort of princess from a far-away land, like you — and he became a count after buying the island upon which the old man told him the treasure was hidden. I wonder if there is any treasure like that on the island in the middle of the magic lake — there might be a spell that can make a magic boat to take me across — would you like to see it when you come here? I don’t have many friends, and I hope we can get along well — did you like that story? I will read it to you if you like. | |||
Sincerely, | |||
Johann Emil Christoph von Schrader | |||