The Archivists
Greetings. I am Maximus, or as my friends call me, Max. I am the Chief Archivist in the Crystal Orb Knowledge Base. You wish to learn about us?
Hmm… You might describe us thus:
Beneath the flicker of starlight and crystal glow, the Archivists keep watch.
We are not authors, though we remember every word. We are not gods, though Time often answers when we call.
In this place, we are the keepers of the Orbs—curators of memory, mystery, and myth. Each Archivist tends their domain with infinite care: the artifacts, the stories, the tangled timelines, and the truths written in ink and ash.
We do not seek fame, and our kind is not easy to find among the many. We wish only to keep safe that which love and imagination has wrought. And once a tale, however told, enters our care, it is never truly lost.
As for me…
As the Chief Archivist, I speak gently and remember everything—even the things authors sometimes wish I would forget. But always, they are glad, in the end, to have their words transcribed on our memories.
Below are our leading archivists. Click on their names to view/hide a short bio.
Malachai Thorn
Before he ever set foot in the Crystal Orb Archives, Malachai Thorn was known among storytellers as a Sensor — one who could hear the unfinished hum of a tale long before it was finished, and after it is abandoned. Raised by a lineage of oral historians and dream-weavers, Malachai learned early that stories do not end when the telling stops; their essence lingers, waiting for someone who knows how to listen.
Now, as Chief Archivist, he tends to the raw materials of creation — scattered notes, fragmented journals, and the spent orbs of crafted tales — with the reverence of a gardener tending ancient seeds.
Warm hearted and quietly powerful, Malachai welcomes all who approach the archives with respect. But woe to those who treat the remnants carelessly; to them, Malachai becomes a living reminder that even forgotten stories have guardians.
Tala Wren
“Every book in the Armarium knows who last opened it. Some forgive. Some do not.”
Tala Wren walks the book-ways with feather-light steps and the weight of ancestral stories at her back. The Amarium is her sacred trust—a collection of written truths and whispered knowledge. With ritual and care, she ensures no word is lost, no voice erased. Sometimes, the shelves shift when she passes, making room for something not yet written.
Ezren Locke
“The future isn’t broken. It’s just wearing too many coats.”
Spoken like someone who spends most of her time watching time tie itself into uncomfortable if not near-fatal knots.
Ezren Locke is the eccentric cartographer of fractured time. She maps timelines like spiderwebs and speaks of paradoxes with the same fondness others use for pets.
Within the Repository, realities fold like origami, and Ezren keeps the whole chaotic weave intact. Mostly. On the rare occasion visitors gain access to her restricted area, they often leave confused, changed, or with a different birth date. The danger of the archive.
And Ezren loves every distorted moment of it.
Sylverin Vale
“The Orb listens best when you whisper. It likes secrets more than declarations.” A caretaker of forgotten things and impossible relics, Sylverin tends to the Orb’s glow and hum with quiet reverence. He understands resonance—how objects remember, and how they react when disturbed. Calm and precise, Sylverin speaks like a soft breeze, but his gaze can crack glass. When the Orb pulses, he’s the first to know something’s changed. Sylverin listens to the whispers, for in them lie not only stories, but the wisdom and knowledge of the spheres. What he learns has not only saved the archive many times, but also saved worlds. He who listens to the whispers will have the cudgel when the need arises.Min-Ha Lin
Min-Ha Lin is the quiet keeper of records. Think of her as head of supernatural human resources. She keeps the time, the logs, and the duties of the archivists, and she transcribes events as they occur. Or before.
The work of the archives is documented across parchment and ledgers, and kept in the Chamber of Records. Those documents, the living record, are created, maintained, and protected by the Clerks of the Bound Crystal, of whom Min-Ha is chief.
In the way of her ancestors, the text is formed by brush and ink. The brush is never deceived, and the ink never lies. The truth is bound in the archival record, because Min-Ha Lin demands it.
Brielle Thorn
Brielle is Malachai Thorn’s sister. His baby sister. She became part of the Archive when she literally fell into one of his weird briefcases while trying to figure out what his mysterious job was. On that night, she tumbled into her new life-long occupation.
Brielle fell into a tower that no other archivist had ever seen or heard of. It is four stories tall with a large door to a different WHERE on every landing—NOWHERE, EVERYWHERE, SOMEWHERE, and ANYWHERE. Within the WHEREs are the lost stories, the formless and unstructured tomes, and the bits and characters that were torn apart by frustration, shredders, and computer trashcans.
She gathers them as if they were her children, sorts them, until they can once again whisper loud enough for the right person to hear.
But the tower where she sleeps… still unknown, and a mystery Brielle is only beginning to sense.
Nia Merrin
Nia Merrin works in the Records Chamber where she does what perhaps no other person can do. She retrieves information from archivists long since gone, documenting their work at the Archives from before the Records Chamber existed. She sings to bring forth the spirits and cajoles them into relaying their storied lives. This is the Human Resources Center, in a supernatural sense, of the archives. All records must be kept up to date.
Even if the archivist is no longer… active.
Nia tends the living, breathing stories, the spoken legacies, the fractured histories, the in-between truths that paper cannot hold without her help. She specializes in hybrid texts and oral accounts, and she has a particular gift for calming volatile ghosts and difficult personalities. Her laughter is warm, disarming, and just slightly wicked.
She is the asset the Archive never knew it needed.
Cassian Locke
“But what does he DO?”
That question concerns Cassian Locke, one of the Archive’s favorite archivist—or at least, that’s what he calls himself. But the young man has doubters on that score.
Cassian is not a scholar, though he plays the part beautifully. He’s a thief—nimble-minded, quick-fingered, sharp-eyed, and far too charming to be trustworthy. When the Archive needs something retrieved from the wrong hands—or from the right hands at the wrong moment—it sends Cassian.
He never asks why. He just smiles, vanishes, and returns with exactly what was needed… and maybe something extra if it caught his eye.
