Fourth Cycle of Pontius
First Candlemark in the Brightening of Srennia
The Winter of Era I of the Celestine Mandate
Thirteenth Era Post Fractum, the Second Era of the Reign of Arabella
Paradigm: The Eclipse of the Sun
The Imperial High Sage had seen fit to sponsor a young man who had shown mathematical prowness beyond even the Sage himself. He had much potential and the High Sage decided to develop the young man's skills so that the Empire might benefit from it.
Xarxos was given an old storage room, converted into an office, next to the library in the Imperial High Sage's compounds.
Inside the library were walls and walls of books and rolled manuscripts on a diverse range of topics, a giant glistening world globe in its wooden cradle, busts of ancient Allerian gods and goddesses, great sprawling maps. And arranged in glass cases, curious objects. There were fossils, exotic shells, bouquets of dried flowers, fragment of old sculpture.
And everywhere around the centre of the room, scattered amongst the red oak tables and glass cases, were comfortable upholstered chairs with footstools, and candelabra or oil lamps. Two wooden ladders were set up at opposite ends of the room along brass railings to assist in obtaining books on the higher shelves.
The office was situated next to the library and consisted of a day bed with a bedside table, a bookcase and a couple of oil lamps hanging from the walls. The bookcase contained books that the mathematician had read the night before and were put back upside down, so that he could remember which books he had finished reading. On one side of the room, a simple pine table stood with a stack of plain papers in one drawer, a couple of pencils and erasers in another, and waste basket to the right of the table. The room was meticulously clean and neat, though sparse, courtesy of Xarxos' obsession for cleanliness. All the papers were squared to the edge of the drawer, and the pencils placed equidistant to each other.