Aldric the Scribe

Aldric is a young man in his twenties with an open, friendly face, perpetually framed by a mop of brown hair that stubbornly refuses any attempt at grooming. It's as if an invisible wind were constantly amusing itself by tousling his locks in every direction. His hazel eyes, bright and curious, betray a sincere intelligence - even if it's often eclipsed by his legendary absent-mindedness.

Aldric's most immediately recognizable trait is the ink stains. They are everywhere: on his fingers of course, but also on his cheeks (which he has a habit of scratching while thinking), on his sleeves, and sometimes even on the tip of his nose. The Citadel's laundresses gave up long ago on keeping his tunics spotless. He carries a worn leather satchel, always too full of parchments, spare quills, and bits of sealing wax that he invariably forgets to put away.

Despite this apparent disorder, there is something endearing about his lanky silhouette striding through the Citadel's corridors at a hurried pace, his nose sometimes buried in a parchment, sometimes raised toward the sky as if seeking an inspiration that's slow to come. The other scribes often spot him from afar thanks to the distinctive clinking of his satchel at every step.

Aldric arrived at the Archivists' Guild three years ago, recommended by the governor of the Valombre province who had noticed his calligraphy talents. Son of a modest village cartographer, he grew up surrounded by maps and parchments, developing an early and deep love for the written word. However, where his father was meticulous to the point of obsession, Aldric inherited a more impetuous temperament - enthusiastic but sometimes careless with details.

His arrival at the Citadel was marked by an incident the Guild has never forgotten. Tasked with transcribing the chronicles of King Aldric III - a namesake he is secretly quite proud of - he worked for weeks on a parchment of critical importance. But one night, Berenice, another scribe working on the same document from the West Tower, saved her own version without knowing that Aldric had made modifications that very morning. The next day, entire weeks of Aldric's work had simply vanished, overwritten with no way to recover it. This episode, known in the Guild as "The Lost Manuscript Incident," became a canonical example of the dangers of working without versioning.

Far from letting himself be defeated, Aldric drew from this misadventure a newfound determination. He was among the first apprentices to fervently adopt the archiving techniques taught by the Master Archivist, understanding better than anyone why they were necessary. Today, he is one of the most diligent chroniclers at the Citadel - still a bit untidy, certainly, but driven by a keen awareness of the fragility of written knowledge. The ancient archives also mention a "King Aldric" in the chronicles of the Third Age, and the young scribe never misses an opportunity to point out this coincidence with a mischievous smile.

Aldric holds the rank of Chronicler - an intermediate level between apprentice and confirmed archivist. His main task is to transcribe and update the Citadel's official chronicles: Council decrees, scout reports, guild assembly minutes. It is demanding work that requires both speed and faithfulness to the original text, two qualities Aldric possesses - when he manages to stay focused long enough.

His unfortunate experience with the Lost Manuscript earned him an informal but invaluable role: that of living witness. The Master Archivist regularly invites him to tell his story to new recruits, so they can viscerally understand the risks of unversioned work. Aldric carries out this task with a blend of self-deprecation and sincerity that never fails to move the apprentices. He has also become, almost in spite of himself, a fervent advocate for good archiving practices - the one who reminds other scribes to record their changes before leaving their post for the evening.

Aldric is above all a sincere young man, carried by an infectious enthusiasm that even the harshest setbacks cannot extinguish. He throws himself wholeheartedly into every task entrusted to him - sometimes too much so, at the expense of caution. His greatest weakness is his lack of attention to detail: he forgets to close ink wells, mixes up reference numbers, and once archived a trade treaty in the recipe section. The Master Archivist often sighs in his presence, but never without a hint of affection.

Behind the clumsiness lies a sharp mind and a remarkable memory. Aldric can recite from memory entire passages of chronicles he transcribed months earlier. He has a natural gift for spotting inconsistencies in texts, which makes him a formidable proofreader - when he takes the time to proofread himself, which doesn't happen as often as it should. The other scribes appreciate him for his constant good humor and generosity: he is always ready to help a colleague in difficulty, even if it means staying up until dawn.

The incident with Berenice could have created a lasting enmity between the two scribes, but quite the opposite happened. They became good friends, united by their shared misadventure and their common commitment to the new archiving methods. Aldric is fond of saying, with the slightly sheepish smile that characterizes him: "I lost a manuscript, but I gained a lesson worth all the chronicles of the kingdom."