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La Sapienza
Posted: 24 Jul 2006 01:11 AM |
((OOC DISCLAIMER: The following is known only to a select handful of PCs, therefore please RP accordingly! If you don't know, you DO NOT KNOW, nor even suspect.))
The Elemental's Tale: Part I
Ages long have I lived, time counted in liquid millennia, not defined by reality, not defined as you define it... not solid. Not definite. Here in ground where dark and deep and no sun is, there is a place that is and isn't, a place on the soft boundaries of reality where matter melts into dream and dream is all there is: long have we guarded the dream and yet not long. Eternity is relative. Perhaps we have been here a week. Perhaps we have been here since the beginning of time.
These words are nothing to us. Time is not solid ice. Time is liquid water and malleable and distorted.
I am not I. No individuals we. I am part of great ocean, separate and yet not separate. I say I and I say we and the terms are interchangeable.
From ocean have I been taken to serve and to be bound. But not this. Not only this. To observe and judge am I here. No reading could we get of he whose mind is alien and unreadable. Therefore he I watch and evaluate. This have I been tasked, this was asked of we.
This is not where the tale begins.
Where it begins know not I. It begins before I. Only what I know will I explain.
The rest, unto others let explanation be. |
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La Sapienza: Chapter 2
Posted: 24 Jul 2006 08:49 AM |
Bad News
It began with Lucifer.
The day had begun madly enough, and only descended deeper into madness. An ill-fated trip into the mind-bending Frobozz Mines. A fate fulfilled. Insanity born. In that one day everything went wrong.
It began badly and ended badly. The worst day on record. The day all the madness began.
But this is not about the madness. This is about La Sapienza.
~*~
A silence had fallen within the large tent, all topics of conversation apparently exhausted. The Mirghul Rangers and the lone Sunbringer occasionally eyed the odd adventurers warily, but otherwise, all was sane again. For now.
It was the proverbial calm before the storm.
“So,” Xaranthir began, breaking the silence. “What shall we discuss?”
“Sumfin’ aside from Frobozz?” Alton suggested, a little too eagerly.
“Something sane and not stressful, preferably,” Jerec added, wincing.
“I’m sure Lucifer has something,” Xaranthir decided, turning to the other mage in the tent. “Right Lucifer?”
“Mostly esoteric stuff,” he replied with a shrug. “You know... The loss of the Midor library is a terrible thing.”
Xaranthir, having half-turned to Alton, snapped his full attention back to Lucifer.
“WHAT?”
“Have you tried to go back recently, X?” Lucifer asked, apparently oblivious to the other man’s shock.
“Loss...?” Jerec’s reaction was slightly more dignified, but no less alarmed. Alton and Natalyia, by contrast, were unconcerned or unaware of the significance of the news.
“What do you mean loss?” Xaranthir demanded.
“I mean, have you actually tried to get to the books?” Lucifer continued blithely. He turned to Jerec. “Well... loss of access,” he amended.
“Dressed like this? I can’t approach the gate even,” Xaranthir complained. Cursed by the mad wizard Frobozz to be dressed in nothing but a blue loincloth and boots, he had a valid point.
“Not actual loss,” Lucifer continued to ramble.
“I live there!”
“Yes... good point,” he went on, the conversation starting to grow layer upon layer and fall out of sequence as the two mages talked over the top of each other.
“Well, used to live there...”
“Exactly. All mages have to report to the Temple.”
A disgusted expression crossed Xaranthir’s face. “What?”
“To re-seek approval in the Temple for their studies. Of course, all non-Midorans have been evicted without any of their research notes. And the few mages who were allowed to study—myself being one of them—”
“I need to relocate...” Xaranthir muttered to himself.
“—no longer have access to the books.”
Xaranthir blinked his mismatched eyes, incredulous. “Why? I worked in La Sapienza for years.”
“I do not know,” Lucifer admitted with a shrug. “I, apparently, was not faithful enough to be told that.”
“How do they guard what goes in and out?” Jerec cut in, leaning forward intently.
“There’s nothing there that is harmful,” Xaranthir went on.
“Well, it seems that someone has put a ward in place...” Lucifer began.
“What kind of ward?” Xaranthir and Jerec demanded simultaneously.
“I don’t know if any of you know, but trying to evoke magic in Midor has become near impossible,” he continued. “A ward that dispels any kind of magic that passes through it. Without fail.”
“Really?” Xaranthir asked.
“Really,” Lucifer nodded.
A barrage of questions followed, Xaranthir and Jerec pelting Lucifer with a rapid-fire interrogation as unerring and myriad as a missile storm.
“—On all the gates?—”
“—Why would they do that?—”
“—How are the gates protected?—”
“—Do they look for invisible people?—”
“—How do they regulate what books get taken in and out?—”
“—How is Nottias doing? Have you seen him?—”
“—Is anyone permitted in any more?—”
“—What about Nottias?—”
A captive and determined audience.
A plan born in indignation. |
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La Sapienza: Chapter 3
Posted: 29 Jul 2006 07:30 AM |
The Elemental's Tale: Part II
Came he to us with guide and something asked, something we knew not what. His words we could not understand. The sounds made in a throat, the sounds that travel through the air, they mean nothing to us. The liquid language behind the language, it is to this we listen; but his words behind a wall of ice were, a wall of ice and we were liquid water.
Therefore not to understand him, we.
His guide we listened through, words of air filtered and interpreted and so we heard them, but distorted through a prism. What his intentions are? Not ordinary, we, but pure. This you must understand. How had he entered this place, softly existing where reality melts into unreality? This place untainted. Had to know, we: had to know if taint he brought. All it takes is one vessel of poison to contaminate sacred waters.
So asked him, we, to walk beneath the waters, beneath the layer of reality, but still no reading had we.
Who is this?
Who is this, of mind hidden and unreadable?
Who is this, who has power old and mind old, not young, not just empty show and no substance?
One thing knew we, one thing recognised I: the blood heritage of he.
Respect have we for this, but also wariness. Many there are who lack the wisdom to cope with what they are. One of them, he? Or not one of them? Mind shut, destiny shut, behind opaque wall of ice, he. Time's streams we could not follow through. Shut and shut and shut. How did this come to be? Know not, I.
Risk not, I. Rejected him, we, for without knowing, without reading, no trust is.
There should story have ended.
And yet...
Alone returned the guide afterwards and put forward suggestion to we.
And to this agreed I. |
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