General Information/Events/Many Returns
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[edit] The Greybeards' Knowledge Yields Little
After their failure to conquer the mysteries of the scroll in the Fall of 985 AE (see "The Scroll, the Oracles, and the Holy Isle"), the men separated for the following winter and spring, each pursuing his own interests. The only true developments in these events were by Yule, who paid the "Greybeards" to spend some months investigating the Trepindian Holy Isle (especially concerning any "fonts"), the helmet the men found there, plus the "spirit" Ischoarius. On 26 April 986 Yule returned to Pollex and learned from the Keepers of the Scrolls...
- Some history (mostly mythical) of Trepindia
- that many fonts are mentioned in those myths (mainly for ritual cleansings)
- that they have no record of Ischoarius
- the helmet seemed ordinary to them
[edit] Marnor Learns of the Scroll
On 7 June 986 the men (Yule, Characters/PCs/Gereth Hargold, and Characters/PCs/Eaidig) pay a visit to the man who "hired" them to investigate the scroll, Head Selectman Characters/NPCs/Marnor. After telling him they found nothing on Trepindia but the "living dead," Marnor shortly quipped, "I am truly sorry to hear this. But, as you may recall, I once told you my business had long ago been in such curiosities as that scroll, and never do they come to much more than a handful of dust." In essence no more was said.
[edit] Return to the Oracles
On 12 August 986, Yule, Gereth, Lothar, Nak'hat, and their new companion Ves arrive in Trin, committed to the desperate plan to glean some sort of information from the Oracles at Trin. First, though, on the road they were attacked by two of the sisters' giant guardsmen, who had been led there by the unsuspecting peasant Pogh--who had been sent by the Oracles to find "Ee Dig." The men kill the giants, and proceed to the Trin temple.
At the temple they find the place has been closed for the last six months or so to by soldiers of Aeneus. Luckily, Lothar had recently been named a sergeant of the Order of Aenean Knights, so he has merely to give his name, drop his weapons, and enter on "official business."
Inside the temple, three of the Oracles are dead, lying on the floor, decomposing. How they died is a mystery, although one appears to have died in childbirth, one from leprosy, and the last had seemed on death's doorstep even last Fall. The only remaining Oracles are the wild, deformed hag and the gauzed/muslined acolyte, who grow excited at the group's entry and claim "it's time." The only information gleaned from their words (mainly th acolyte's), are...
- They knew Ischoarius "of old": "Ischoarius was the priest who we killed, long before all this... When this cave and this swirl were our only domain, long before the dead emperors of old found our Master and us, when we foretold the deaths of them--and when we foretold of this very day--and you--we were the death of Ischoarius...We did not wish to kill him, but when the gods no longer stand before their loves, they must die. What choice without such love does one have?"
- Furthermore, "Ischoarius was father to my loves, but when we wed one another and consummated our power, he was consumed with his isle and his nation."
- When asked their names, they say, "We have no names but what our loves whispered to us, and He has not spoken nor whispered nor tremored for an age."
- When asked where the missing knight Stalfix has gone--for Lothar knew he had been sent to Trin months ago--they for once answer plainly: "Your marshal, my love, is sent to find you, to await you, on the Holy Isle."
- This second trip by the men to Trin appears to hearken the end of the Oracles: "we must submerge into the nothingness...or worse." And this holds true, for the hag picks up an Execution Axe and drives it into the waiting back of the acolyte; then the hag throws herself into the sea swirl below. Why this occurred is a mystery.
The men leave Trin without a word to the guards about what happened below.
