Missing Chancellor quest documentation [PUBLICLY AVAILABLE]

Irvyn · 30-09-06, 08:57 AM

[OOC: Made publicly available - put here to save people the time to go looking or asking. Everyone can see this information, it's not restricted to guards.]

Torn page from one of Michael's notebooks: (found by Emer, given to Kaelyn for the Duke)

Quote:

...ck seems to be most
.....t import and could lead
.... things previously
....cannot find out until
... faint and far off
....ourney will take many
...gerous places but that
...xceptionally interesting

Letter from Michael to the Duke: (on the middle bookshelf of the ones by the Duke's desk)

Quote:

My dear old friend,

I haven't much time, and so much at stake. As you have surmised, I have been deep in my studies and have paid little heed to much else these past months. Or has it been years? Suffice to say that I believe that this matter is the most important I have ever pursued. I feel that I am getting close, but so too is the ever increasing sense of dread that I confided in you recently.

I know, old friend, that you fear for my safety, and truth be told, it is well founded. But I stand fast in my refusal of your kind offer of aid. There is too much at stake to risk discovery. The agents of despair are ever watchful, ever vengeful... I dare not risk anyone else.

If my work is safely completed, we may all rest more soundly in our beds. If not, well, who can say?

Do not fret, for although I may not be so young as I once was, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I am a wily old fool.

Your ever faithful friend,
Michael

Burned notebook found by the Duke at the University: (left with Guardsman Lance Williams)

Quote:

Research Notes – Ongoing
by Michael

I can put it off no longer. All my life’s work, I have ever striven to seek out knowledge, hidden lore, lost practices – and ultimately, the hidden Truth of things. My desire as ever to preserve that which merits continuation, and to erase that which seeks only to bring harm to the innocent or unwary. Yet, over time, I have come to question the distinctions in my work. The boundaries become ever more blurred and my mind is muddled. Who am I to judge what is worthy of preservation? What pride has locked me in its narcissistic grip and blinded me with insolent arrogance? It is right that one man should be the arbitrator of what is worthy of continuation, and what of only annihilation? And worse still, what if I overlook something, something precious; something vital? Some perilous link, clue or key that could undo incomparable harm? Something that could perhaps release a poor soul from torment? If I were to eradicate all trace of unholy work I uncover, and cast away the key to its undoing – how will I rest knowing in my heart of hearts that I may well have overlooked something? Missed some scant hint or hidden esoteric source that, if found, would allow the wicked to once more arm themselves for unspeakable crimes. Crimes that might never be undone because I – I – had destroyed the knowledge necessary to undo them?

I am old. My time slips away like grains of windswept sand. I must conclude my life’s work. Alas, I must confront my own darkest fears and seek the source of such unknowable damnation, that I may at last find the very heart of darkness which hath tempted men of evil through the centuries. Only then may I gain the knowledge to render such acts impotent. To unmake the evil that strips men of their souls. I believe there is still one existing copy of the Book of Truth and Revelation. Whatever the cost, I must see it, secure it, harness its power, and, with the help of the fates, master its secrets, that it may guide me on my final path of discovery.

Woe is me, the task is a hand weighing heavily on my humble heart. I fear, indeed I do fear ...
[The rest of the book is burned away.]

John · 30-09-06, 02:19 PM

Shipwrecks of Lore

(you see a sheaf of pages apparently torn from a larger work. They bare the title of the main work on their top margins: "Shipwrecks of Lore" The writing is water stained and faded)

.....Then did the Ancient Mariner weep, for try as they might, the brave crew could not prevail in their titanic struggles 'gainst the fury of the maelstrom, so wrathful was it that dark and stormy night of rage...............

Many a babe in arms a'shore wept desperate tears that night, and many a widow lamented then for the crew of the Azure Breeze.......

Lost that dark and wicked night to the fury of the elements and more, dashed to pieces on the columns of the timeles, reptiles coiled there. None survived.......

....Without a trace, and yet some sun-touched sailors still tell of sightings........That would be.......so.......and........Unconfirmed. Still, it is said that when the moon is high and full and exerting its mysterious pull upon the depths, that tides will fall and the parting waves reveal the planking of that forlorn wreck yet, a watery tomb still surviving undisturbed as monument to those who died that dark savage night.

Another sad tale relates the downing with all hands of the good ship Silver Fish, sleek cog of Old Jhelom, lost one dark winter's eve when making the crossing from-

(The rest of the pages are torn away)

Irvyn · 30-09-06, 05:20 PM

[Thanks for the Azure Breeze book, John

]

This is one of the books from the Spiritwood University meeting room:

Quote:

Tome de Animus Sera
by Shiva ap Moriellis

*You see an ancient weathered tome encased in cracking leather wrappings. Inside its pages are yellowed and brittle as you turn them*

In days gone by, when the Daemon Binders reigned supreme, the souls of the living were bartered for as a commodity more precious than the finest gems. Many were the anguished cries of those whose spirit of freedom was ripped from them, like the very flesh from their backs, to be given as payment for the most vile of services.

So horrid was the torment, that the beings of the ancient ways, the Guardians of Nature, sought a means to contravene the practice, lest it make all living beings into mere pawns in the hands of the Binders. Long did they toil in seeking a path towards freedom from such heartless torment, and in doing so, a means by which the wretched might be saved from the accursed powers of the Binders. For theirs was a practice which was an affront to nature. And so it was that the revered Council of the Hierophants at last uncovered the secrets of their enemies, and in doing so, unlocked their powers of soul trapping. It was whispered by some, now long past, that this discovery led at last to the downfall of the Daemon Binders. But lo, their vile secrets did survive them, and fell at length into the hands of those who came after, of equal malice. Some scholars suggest that the greatest of the Binders, whose fury at annihilation was so vast that they defied their own death, were able, somehow, to pass the secret on, and that it remained somehow in the realm of men.

Or of those who once were men....

But so too, may it be that the means to release the soul of one so trapped also survived, the key to lock the essence of a man to himself, and thus save him from a fate worse than death itself.

The Animus Sera.

If it be so, then this precious gift of knowledge may well remain, in the fringes of our realm even unto this day, kept safe in the hands of those who guard and protect the knowledge most precious of the sacred Council of the Hierophants.

It is only in the hope of this that the innocents of the world may cling to any sense of safety in the face of so dire a threat as may still remain from the wickedness of the Binders. May the guardians of the true realm of nature ever prevail, and may their wisdom hold on to this precious treasure of knowledge that is the Animus Sera.

And, may the people of the world remain ever respectful of the role that the Guardians of Nature play in keeping safe Indigena Mundi Naturalis.

Irvyn · 04-10-06, 11:24 PM

Two further books found at Spiritwood University:

In the meeting room, with Tome de Animus Sera.

Quote:

Primitive Cults, Volume 4

There are, in certain remote locations on the fringes of our lands, still those some few who remain that are said to hold to the ?old ways?, or rather, the proto-occult practices of magic that many scholars say gave rise to our own esoteric arts. Among these are the legendary Sorcerers, beings whose incantations are said to draw on the essence of those spirits of arcane origins ? what they regard as the ?source? or rather conduits and channels by which these arcane forces are able to be brought forth into our own realm. These so-called Sorcerers are generally regarded as primitive practitioners by our own relatively modern standards of arcane practice, and yet, they do seem to have certain powers and methods of thaumaturgical conjuration that some could say extend far beyond our own in terms of the sheer raw power that they are able to draw upon.

Chief among them are those that have mastered the arts of summoning, by which I refer not to the simple act of calling forth a spirit of the elements to do one?s simple bidding for but a short time on this mortal coil, but rather, those who have it in their art to actually call forth a primordial servant of the nether realms to converse with, thereby opening up the possibilities of tapping into vast stores of hitherto inaccessible knowledge.

Perhaps the most sinister variant of these primitive practitioners are the so-called Daemon Binders, dark Sorcerers, oft called Witches and/or Warlocks, who have the skills to bring forth fiendish messengers capable of interrogation, by which they are able to tap into many secrets otherwise hidden from our realm beyond the veil that separates ours from other, darker, realms.

The ceremonies needed to call forth such dark apparitions are mostly lost to us, although I, among a few other scholars, have made a study of them, seeking out those few Sorcerers know to still hold the secrets of these dark arts ? purely for scholarship purposes of course.

I shall not attempt here to note down what I have learned of these rituals of dark summonings, for their secrets, should they fall into the wrong hands, could some day lead to terrifying results. These ceremonies I shall therefore retain within my own private meditations, until such time that I might find an apprentice or otherwise trustworthy enough soul to pass them on to, secure in the knowledge that they shall remain held fast against frivolous exploitation. There are some skills best left out of the gaze of those unworthy .....

Michael
Chancellor,
Spiritwood University

In the library on the ground floor, on the Modern History shelf in the Lost Lore collection.

Quote:

The Ice Witches

Very little time at hand to pen these words. Events are happening with such speed. I know only this, the Shivering Coven, as they have been somewhat amusingly called, is a gathering, mostly of old crones, who follow the old ways of the elements, specifically of the icy abyssal depths.

But that description in itself is misleading, for it has become ever clearer that over the centuries, the cult has turned increasingly towards a form of pure daemonology. In fact I would go so far to say that Sorcery was their principle concern or pursuit at their height. That and the summoning and binding of frightful denizens of the outer dark places through whose servitude they are wont to gain perilous insights into those mysteries best left obscured.

In the last age, through the efforts of a certain order of righteous crusaders, virtually all of the ice covens were hunted down and eliminated. But, clearly, some members did manage to slink away unobserved and re-send the contagion that is their calling. One has been exposed, she calling herself Sybil, much as I shudder at the very concept, she it may be that we must now turn to, for through her powers to summon and bind fiends, she could be our only hope of regaining the precious knowledge that will unlock the Lost Lore of the ancient races. It is said that her kind were once found only in the darkest, coldest places of isolation, far from any disturbance, be it civilised or otherwise. They were likened to hermits of the cold wastelands. Perhaps a search of such desolate locations may again uncover their activities? I will counsel this: search all remote, isolated and above all cold dwellings, especially caves, for it has been told that an Ice Witch is like a hermit, dwelling in sea-swept caves on isolated points in the middle of trackless seas. Perhaps there is an island with such a place?

Irvyn · 07-10-06, 10:46 AM

The expedition to the Fire Temple located what may be a copy of the Book of Truth and Revelation which Michael was seeking. Unfortunately it is not usable in its present form:

Quote:

A Blank Book

A very old, heavily bound manuscript with carefully prepared, but blank pages. A slight sickly grey light shimmers from it.

To reveal it, the ceremony of Azak-Vil must be performed. The details were found by Taggart in a book in Spiritwood University [Modern History section, fourth subsection along the top (Lost Lore Saga), 2nd book in the bottom row]:

Quote:

[A heavy book made of fresh reptilian hide, the lettering within it a sort of red-brown colour, written in a jagged hand]

Azak-Vil Ceremony
by Sybil

A fine ritual, oh yes, most excellent. We takes the precious things and we keeps them safe; we takes them to the place of fire worship, where the sacred magik circle with the ankh is guarded by the great red skinned beasties that helps us, they do, they helps us to find the secrets. There, on the red circle up on the top of the chamber where the great serpents slither forth, there we works our magiks well. There we takes the precious things and at the red circle we makes a ring around with some of the feathers of the Phoenix, but just somes to go round and round the outside. The rest we used, we did, to make this precious scroll. Then we takes the precious blood, and some we used we did to write the words here, the special words, and the rest we sprinkles all around the red circle there we do, till all about it glistens with the red. Then we puts the precious words in the middle, the one writ here on the hide of the Old One, and we walks round it widdershins thrice we does. Then we takes the bloods of the special ones, the Elder ones, and we pours it all about the special words writ here, and we makes sure it?s all mingled and oozing nicely. Then we puts the mysterious book on top, the one all write in Geomantic Mysteries. Then we chants we does, we says the special and precious words that we were given by our special helpers that comes to us in the dark cave:

Astioth Benecillus
Incubalus Veck Partha
Nustronium Kazrilla
Azak-Vil!

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