writing is hard

Since he joined the order, Lucius wasn’t the same man. The church had changed him. Still, he had yet to become a very competent fighter and his name was far from renowned. It seemed as if he was destined for a mediocre life and now he was staring death in the face.
Fifteen years ago when he began his journey to become a paladin, he was a young boy. He was tall for his age, but he had weak shoulders and a pale almost sickly complexion.  His light brown hair glinted in the sunlight when he would sit outside to study the old manuscripts from the town library. He was not allowed to read these documents. Certainly not, for he was the bastard child of some obscure noble. No one knew who Lucius’s father was, least of all Lucius himself. He had no last name, so he used his first name. No one ever asked for his first name anyway. Lucius would have been raised on the scraps of some a couple of farmers who were kindhearted enough to feed him anything at all. He would have been made to work the fields of course and he would be regularly beaten to ensure that the unholy inclinations that caused his parents to father a bastard child would not be present in Lucius. This was not the fate of Lucius. No, instead Lucius was left with a merchant under oath to watch him until he was ready to take care of himself. Then he was to be provided a sizeable sum of money that would replace his parents until he became a man. Lucius must have been very precocious because he was deemed “ready” at the tender age of five.
It was because of this sum of money he had been given that he was able to spend his Sunday as he currently was. He could afford, at the cost of his savings, to not labor in the carpenter’s shop for his daily food. Instead he could walk to the market a purchase a piece of fruit to enjoy. In his opinion, his life was great. Every week, he could spend several hours doing what he enjoyed most: eating and reading. Not at the same time, however. That was his only regret.  He had enough sense to know that the juices would ruin the prized manuscripts. He took great care not to damage these documents, out of respect for the items themselves, not their owner. In fact, Lucius knew that he would be publicly flogged if it were ever discovered that he was taking the manuscripts. Yet, he still took the risk of carrying them extremely carefully and gingerly setting them back into place on the shelves. Lucius enjoyed the excitement of the risk he took on the days when he would sneak into the Library.
Today was one such day.  Lucius walked around the side of the “Library” and came to his normal entry spot, a loose board on the side of the house. He called it a library and for all purposes it was. Lucius returned everything he stole, so it was really more like borrowing. He dusted off his shirt rather pointlessly before lifting up the wooden board on the side of the manor and crawling in. He crawled on wet dirt and squeezed under hard wooden planks and past heavy rock foundation before arriving at the most risky part of his expedition. He gingerly pulled loose a brick that formed the upper wall of the manor’s basement. Then slowly wriggling out of the hole, he could drop down some twenty feet to land on a pile of hay. The hay was feed for the horses. It was stored in the basement to prevent thievery by the other farmers when food was scarce. Once again dusting himself off, Lucius proceeded up the stairs.