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The Solace Atheneum stands sentinel atop the northernmost outcrop of Shariz, its sandstone spires rising high above the city’s outer walls, gleaming in the daylight like a monument to the sun itself. A towering spiral of knowledge, the Atheneum serves as a multi-tiered archive of rediscovered and preserved histories—containing maps, scrolls, arcane texts, relics, and ancient Solir scripture long thought lost to the sands.
Founded as a joint effort between the Emris Adventuring Guild and the Sand Scribes from The Scriptorium, it remains one of the most revered repositories in all of Osira, and a symbol of Sharizian cultural revival following centuries of decline under Malekith's Holy Order of the Sun which sought to erase history they deemed blasmephous.
Architecture & Design
Built from desert-gold limestone and crowned with a vaulted atrium of amber glass, the Atheneum spirals upward through five ascending levels of interconnected galleries, scroll vaults, and climate-sealed chambers. Its architecture is both functional and ceremonial, with wide arcades, shadowed alcoves, and scholar’s cloisters set into every floor.
At its apex lies the Solar Oculus—a radiant sunstone set in a hanging bronze cradle that absorbs the noonday sun and emits its brilliance through the night, bathing the entire upper tier in soft golden illumination. From its open-air balcony, one can see the full sweep of Shariz below, The Barren Badlands to the north, the The Serrakhan Scar to the south, and even the distant glimmer of Rozan's Eye on a clear morning.
Purpose & Preservation
The Atheneum was conceived during the early days of the Fifth Age, but only completed years later after the Conjunction of the Realms, when vast stores of lost lore were uncovered by the Emris Adventuring Guild during their expeditions across Osira. With the support of the Serrakhan Sultanate, these findings were collated alongside existing Scriptorium holdings to form a unified vault of cultural memory.
The Sand Scribes, a monastic order descended from the ancient curators of Tolria, oversee the cataloging and security of the archives. Their work is tireless and meticulous, ensuring that no knowledge—whether magical, divine, historical, or heretical—is ever lost again to sand, flame, or empire.
Founding Fathers
Though the Atheneum bears the name and flair of Altair Emris, the former Headmaster of the Emris Guild, much of its structural design, archive classification, and academic curriculum were the labor of Professor Henry Endsworth—a quiet but brilliant scholar whose efforts were long overshadowed by Emris’ public acclaim.
After Emris’ death and the exposure of his true identity as Alistair Emrys, former advisor to Avatar Lumina, his legacy within the Atheneum has been quietly debated. While his contributions remain undeniable, it is now widely accepted that the vision of preservation was shared—and perhaps better realized—by those who succeeded him.
Collections
The Atheneum’s holdings include:
The Runic Compendium of Talus, a sealed archive of elder glyphs and transcribed lore from The Earth Realm.
Full transcriptions of Solir Sun-Rifting rituals, recovered from the ruins of Itela and Rozan's Redoubt.
The Sharizian Cartographic Atlas, including pre-Conjunction maps and dimensional overlays of Osira as it is now charted.
A growing collection of oral histories from survivors of the Third Continuum Crisis, stored within the Hall of Echoes using recorded memory crystals.
Current Status
Now a pilgrimage site for scholars, scribes, and aspiring historians across the realms, the Solace Atheneum is more than a library—it is a bulwark against oblivion. Within its walls, the errors and triumphs of ages past are remembered, studied, and made known.
To walk the Atheneum’s quiet corridors is to hear the whispered pulse of history, to bear witness to the resilience of truth—even when buried for centuries beneath the sand.