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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 29, 2017 22:04:45 GMT
Taun-Lok had only an inkling of understanding the prophecy. Wrongfully dammed meant nothing to him, but written by Hexuatl's hand had some providence. The ancient cursed pyramid in the city had once belonged to the Mage Caste, a group of the reptilian pepole that delved into arts forbidden by the gods, and it was said to have been built by Hexuatl. They had only been able to survive for as long as they did by hiding their heresy deep with in its bowels. The Horned King, first Priest-King whose skull Taun-Lok wore and from whose line he was born, had sealed it and banned their dark arts.
"<I seek the power to save my people. The strength to carry on our legacy.>" His feral voice was low and reverant.
Tehaun spoke first with a motherly tone. "All things must end my child."
The other gods shuffled, turning their heads away before Hexuatl, God of time made his voice heard. "That power was given unto your fathers, but they have squandered it."
Totutl spoke to the Priest-King his normally stern tone even more somber, like a father speaking to a child that had done wrong. "You seek the power of the Heavens themselves, buried deep in the earth. Find your path, Twice Cursed, for they are intertwined."
And the spirits dissipated, their borrowed time on this earth used and spent with what little they could offer.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 29, 2017 23:46:36 GMT
She couldn't understand Taun-Lok - but the spirits were another story. In shorthand, she copied down their words in case of future relevance. That pretty much ended the necessity of writing in her sketchbook, at least for the moment. She needed to press on, focus on other things, or she'd look too long at the broken corpse or her own red hands. "What did they mean that your fathers had squandered the power you're after?" She closed her sketchbook. "Did you hear what you needed to hear, or was it another riddle, or both? And who died here anciently that could be called wrongfully damned? It sounded like they had a location associated with them, some kind of burial crypt or catacomb..." She trailed off and swayed on her feet. "Excuse me," she said, and stumbled back out of the pyramid. Pyramids of this type were symbolic mountains, representing an approach to the heavens. And the small enclosures at the top connoted caves, places of communion with the underworld. Pyramids, she knew, had real and sacred significance to any number of cultures. She got a look out over the city as she trembled at the top of the stairs. Then her notebook fell as her knees hit the stone precipice, and she vomited down the sacred stairs. She tasted Dareth's heart again, and found herself hoping she'd expelled it all.
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 30, 2017 4:14:32 GMT
Taun-Lok, Twice Cursed. His God had called him Twice cursed on two occasions now, the father of his race and the King of his pantheon, the very pantheon he hoped to join with his forebears. They had been given a power by the Gods and squandered it? The Priest-Kings had caused the City to flourish after the long war of the dead like none had seen since the Gods sealed themselves inside the pyramid. How could they have squandered such a power? The city's wrongfully damned, it could mean nothing, and yet all the Gods spoke held meaning. Every syllable was meaningful, every twitch of a finger with a purpose. Princess Mirielle Merlon vomited, emptying the already nearly empty stomach, turning its contents upon the golden stairs. Outside, there were dozens gathered to wait to hear what wisdom had been departed to their long lost King. Many stared in horror at the woman, still alive after a communion with the Gods. The lizard warrior picked Mirielle's book from the stones as he made his way to her. " Care." Taun-Lok moved to lift her up, like a father would carry a small child to take her down the stairs. " First." She needed several things before she could go about, their paths were intertwined for now and thus her life was still sacred. The Sunbloods wearing their ancestors skull's as helmets stood in a wall before the pyramid's base. And though there were several very angry lizard warriors, they did not make to cross the line. They waited to hear the will of the Gods, but no words came forth from the Priest-King's mouth. Not yet. He growled at a pair of the Sunblood warriors, who left the line and sprinted towards the market district while the rest cleared him a path to leave the great pyramid and make his way to his own abode. By the time they made it down the pryamid, the two guards had already returned with baskets of fresh fruit and fresh fish, as well as firewood, flint, and tinder, and a colorful silken cloth.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 30, 2017 4:50:54 GMT
Taun-LokFood: good. She pounded down two unrecognizable fruits and felt her stomach begin to ease. Carrying: good. Taun-Lok had carried her both up and down the pyramid, which felt somehow dishonest but at least hadn't contributed to her state of wornoutness. Bodyguards: good. She knew a tense situation when she saw it. Didn't take an alchemy surgeon to know that people tended to resent it when outsiders got more direct access to their gods than they'd enjoyed. The vomit probably hadn't helped either. "Too many eyes," she said quietly. She didn't much like being held now that it wasn't necessary for the climb, but she was too tired to get out of the priest-king's grip. "I need a place to cook and rest. I need to be alone for a while, I think. Thank you." Maybe she was talking to Taun-Lok, maybe the guards who'd brought the things, possibly both. She felt dull, as if her emotions were far away; she could feel hints of them but nothing more. Not even the hunger made a dent in what seemed a little like a bad kind of calm. "Thanks for picking up my notebook, too." She held it close, despite the blood that marred the cover and her hands. "I couldn't leave that."
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 30, 2017 5:11:49 GMT
Taun-Lok and the guards walked forward, through the city to a small secluded section. Some others followed, wide-eyed, some visibly angry. Most of the City was quiet. Silent. A short wall with a threshold appeared before them, set off to a quiet section of the city, sparsely populated and the guards stopped the followers a respectful distance away from it, dropping the supplies gathered within and making their leave of the area while Taun-Lok carried Mirielle Merlon through the threshold. The clearing was open topped, walled on all four sides. Inside a small waterfall struck stones at the edge of a wall, forming a stream running through the middle of the little enclosure. On one side of the stream was a grassy side struck directly by one of the beams of light from the Stone atop the great pyramid. On the other was three stone walls about the size of a house with a long leanto stretching all the way to the stream. It appeared unlived in, but kept in good condition. A bed sat on a raised platform with fresh straw packed under silken cloth, and blankets, furs, and leathers folded on top of it. Taun-Lok set Mirielle down, shaking his scales as he pulled off the heavy bone helmet and stone armor he wore. Thick cords of muscle and sinew could be seen on his neck and chest, scars of battles long forgotten covered his back and chest. The warrior sat down in the stream, sinking to his chest with what could have been called a sigh. The water was warm and moved comfortably. He took a moment with his eyes closed before acknowledging the princess again with a hastily written note. You may stay here; cook, clean, sleep. Use the cloth for fresh clothing, discard the bloodstained. Wake me if you need anything. We will speak once you've recovered some.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 30, 2017 5:23:18 GMT
Her mother had always said 'if you're too tired for gratitude, go to bed.' Another thanks didn't quite make it past Miri's numb lips. She discarded most of her wrecked clothes and plunged into a different part of the creek to scour the blood from her skin and hair. It didn't work, but it was worth a shot. Wrapping the bolt of faded silk around herself, she set about lighting a fire and cooking the fish. The whole process took far too long. She wanted, with every fibre of her being, to pass out right now. But she also wanted to not wake up covered in blood, starving, and smelling fish gone bad. So one step at a time, she did her chores. Only when she'd burned her wrecked and bloody clothes to ash and put the fire out did she slip into the bed.
She half-woke at night, maybe of that day, maybe of the next. She'd only woken from hunger. This time she ate the rest of the fruit; as soon as that was chewed down to the rinds and the pits, she passed out again.
The second time she woke, it was a brilliant, starry night -- still, or again -- and she could look at her reflection in the stream without hating it. She knotted and folded the red silk toga more tightly around her, and laid down on the bed again. This time she didn't sleep, just stared at the ceiling of the lean-to and let her mind drift through all the bad and all the good and all the possibilities.
When morning came, she crouched at the edge of the water where Taun-Lok slept.
"I'm alive."
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 30, 2017 5:42:55 GMT
Taun-Lok slept most of the time Mirielle Merlon had. Other than to have one of his spawn brothers bring a fresh basket of fruits from the market district, he had relaxed in the water and on the grass alternating as his mood had permitted. A year. A year he had wandered the outside world looking for answers. Answers that had never come to him. He had spoken with Totutl every week of that year, begged his god for guidance. And so little had ever come to him. It was not until he had summoned the god in Ethenwald by chance that he had come closer to his goals and even then, they had not come to him. They had come to her. A small part of the Priest-King hated his gods for their riddles, their tricks. How they never revealed what he sought from them when he did. Part of him had felt as though he should hate the Princess as well. They had helped her, put her on the path she sought for nothing. She had made no sacrifice, was not one of the chosen people. She was just in the right place at the right time, and Totutl had seen fit to grant her his wisdom at her first request. But he could not hold it against her. She had not asked to be shown favor even if she received it more readily than he ever had. When she spoke, his eyes opened slightly, watching her for a moment before shifting in the water so that he could write on parchment for her. She had done things few people of her kind had or would these last days, and Taun-Lok felt sympathy for her. You are brave little princess. Braver than most warriors. I hope that you are well, but I know that you probably are not.
You are safe here in this abode, but do not walk the streets alone. I do not know how my cousins will accept you until I speak with them. My brothers and sisters wear the skull helms of their ancestors like I do, they can be trusted to keep you safe.
I have slept on the riddles and have some ideas. Hexuatl is the Scribe of the Gods, his library was kept in the Forbidden Temple, but the sacrilege of its keepers tarnished it forever by practicing forbidden arts. The First Kings sealed it to prevent its corruption from spreading and no one has entered since before the rise of the Mapheri Empire. If anything he wrote still exists it will be in there. That is where we shall go, but in secret. No one can know. Not even my brothers and sisters that protect us. What horrors lied within that temple he did not know. They could have spawned vile beasts, undead, or some other monstrosities before the Horned King sealed the temple away. Or the corruption could be much less living and much more literal. The King did not know, but they would have to find out.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 30, 2017 5:53:18 GMT
Miri took a shaky breath and let it out slowly. She tucked the note into her sketchbook with the rest and read it again, then closed the book. Taun-Lok's people thought nothing of bloody sacrifice; what would they consider so vile and corruptive that they would lock it away for centuries?
"That sounds like it lines up with the gods' words," she said. "Of course, there's the whole 'unjustly damned' issue, so maybe there's more to this or, alternately, we're on the wrong track. But it's the best clue I've heard so far."
Another shaky breath. "And no, I'm not doing fine. But I'll get there. My father once told me that any fool could die for a cause, but that it took courage to kill for it. I had that running through my head the whole time in the...in the pyramid. All I can say is this better be worth it. I took a bite of a man's heart for whatever your gods are leading us to-" She stumbled over the dangling participle. "Anyways. I'll go with you on this secret errand, we'll find what your god wrote, and we'll get the answers we need. I have two questions. What's your quest, really? And what were these forbidden arts?"
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 30, 2017 6:14:19 GMT
Taun-Lok scribbled another hastily written note for the Princess in response. In his culture it was polite to write messages as it showed patience and required understanding and attention of another, a show of respect to read a message, but her culture was different. He took no offense to her speaking casually to him, whereas if one of his people did so, he would likely take it as a challenge to his dominance unless it was an emergency. You will need friends to recover from your tribulations. Any fool can kill and claim it is for a cause, but a wise being knows when to stay their blade for a cause, and when they must strike. Regardless of what we find, you have gained a friend who has spent two hundred years perfecting the killing of undead. He patted her shoulder gently as he stood from the water, pulling a colorful silk cloth around his waist and tying it together. He did not bother to don his armor or helm, he would not need them. Muscles rippled as he flexed and stretched after a long, stiff sleep. The warrior considered not answering her, or ignoring her, but the truth would hold more weight and garner more trust between them. Trust that was shaken in the pyramid when he had her eat part of a man's heart. Magic. Magic is forbidden by the Gods. It leads only to trouble and mischief and is banned within the city, even outsiders must abide this law. The scribes summoned an army of undead to the walls that plagued our people for six centuries because of their obsession with magic.
My quest began a year ago when the Gods told me my people would be wiped out in my life time. I set out into the world to break that prophecy, but even as I walked, the Gods plagued my mind with visions of my city's destruction. I sought to die sometimes. Then I sought to shatter any of their prophecies to set the river of time unbound by the fulcrums of prophecy, but so far I have failed. I seek the power to shatter the prophecy of the gods, and Totutl has guided me to you and you to the Forbidden Temple, as one would suspect the power to shatter the flow of time would be held.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 30, 2017 19:31:48 GMT
Re-reading Taun-Lok’s notes was becoming par for the course. He had an economical, multi-layered way of writing, and she often didn’t catch everything the first time around. She nodded and took the note back to the lean-to, where she crouched over her sketchbook.
But what to say? Her lead-stick paused over the page and froze there. Clearly there was magic, ancient and strong, bound up in his gods and the sunstone and the flare of burning light he’d used against the orcs. And the summoning ritual itself -- that had magic as well. A question of definitions, perhaps, and an easy division to make: nothing was more antithetical to the undead than gods’ light. To her mind, Taun-Lok was suffering from a fundamental misdefinition of magic, but she couldn’t very well write ‘you and your gods are magic heretics too; what’s the issue?’ He clearly wasn’t a mage in any classical or traditional sense, but he just as clearly had power of some kind, and at a root level was that distinguishable from sorcery at all?
And yet all of that was trivia next to the last paragraph, Taun-Lok’s explanation of his quest and the nature of his relationship with his gods. No, with their prophecies -- he still spoke of them affectionately, trusted their counsel, called them benevolent. He’d de-personalized the link between them and their predictions, as if they were merely reporting an inevitability that had nothing to do with them. But how could that be so, if they were so tightly woven into the fabric of the lost city’s civilization? Through action or inaction, weren’t they inextricable, especially if their prophecies served as a fulcrum?
She could simply write ‘I think I understand; let’s go.’ He probably didn’t expect anything more from her. Even so, she found herself writing.
Time magic was banned over most of the continent until not long ago, and the Council of Magi, though their influence is much decreased, still take extreme measures against it. So I doubt there will be any useful resources elsewhere, except perhaps with dark magicians, and I’d imagine you have strong feelings about working with them or using their research. More and more, this sealed temple seems like our best chance of solving your problem as well as mine.
What opposition will we find there?
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 30, 2017 20:22:18 GMT
The warrior nodded as she claimed to be ready to enter the Forbidden Temple. The Magic that the mages had practiced had fallen from memory generations ago, and no one alive was quite sure what it was they had practiced in secret, hidden from the Gods and the Faithful. Now, only the power derived directly from the Gods was allowed within the City, such as the Hands of the Gods, the two Sunstones of Totutl, the great one on the pyramid and the other kept on a stone altar, a handful of other artifacts existed in the city. The warrior took up a pair of small, fist sized sunstones from a box, shoving them into a pouch so that they would be able to see. The stones themselves were simple. Some type of gemstone that shone with sunlight, after a time they would dim and need to be sat out in the sunlight to recharge. They were said to be similar to the prophetic Star Stones which held images of the Night Sky in correlation to a prophecy coming true. The Sun Stones were largely used for mundane purposes and other than the two large ones weren't anything seriously special. The two largest were enchanted with Divine Magic, while the rest only held that potential but were for the moment relatively mundane. Taun-Lok lead Mirielle to the back of the Forbidden Pyramid, waiting in the shadows until he was sure no one was watching. The stone stubbornly resisted to move when he shoved his shoulder against it, forcing him to strain and struggle until it shifted just enough so that he could squeeze through, plenty of room for Mirielle Merlon to pass into the back of the Temple, the stench of stale air flowing out of the old structure.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 31, 2017 2:39:13 GMT
Taun-LokThe initial burst of stale, settled air washed over her, and she found herself light-headed. Undisturbed air tended to separate over the course of years, or so the chemists of the university said, and some parts of air were poison. A breeze kicked up behind her, rushing into the gap. After a little wait, listening to the wind rustle in the catacombs, she slipped inside to follow Taun-Lok. The dead lay where they'd fallen: necromantic scribes massacred, their spirits purged, their corpses rendered inert in a magical sense and sealed away. They were desiccated enough that she couldn't quite tell, in the gloom, what subspecies they'd been in life. Old scales and feathers crunched under her bare feet. This crypt had been built to house something like a library, and such places had a central logic that translated well to her intuition. In due course they found themselves among nook-shelves like squared-off honeycomb, every niche packed with dusty scrolls and tablets. The scrolls, no doubt, would fall to pieces if she touched them. The tablets had been made to last. "What would your god's record look like?" she said.
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 31, 2017 2:57:51 GMT
Taun-Loks eyes blazed over blue, glowing with light of the Mage-Sight, allowing him to see spirits of the dead that might be lingering, auras of magical energy around beings and items, and allowing him to glimpse the winds of magic as they flowed. What was most troubling was the absence of that wind, even the faintest gust of magical aura should exist in this place despite the centuries after its sealing. The warrior wrote a short hand note for Mirielle rather than attempt to sound out the words of a short sentence with his crocodilian throat and mouth. Thin Stone tablets. Each as wide as my arm is long. One tablet for each year until the sealing. It would be hard to miss once located, the Book of the Scribes. It was less detailed descriptions of the occurances within the city, and more a catalog of where those details were kept. The library, as ancient as it was, didn't exactly conform to the Dewey-Decimal system. Shelves upon shelves of tablets, scrolls, books lined every wall, some crumbled and fallen over, other still standing for three floors of the massive library. The scribes, the Mage Caste as they had called themselves, had been meticulous about documenting their findings and discoveries while the Oracles had focused on cataloging the prophecies they found and the Gods told them. It didn't take long once they descended into the main floor of the library to see the entire back wall of the library's bottom floor was dedicated to containing the stone tablets, all marked with Hexuatl's symbol at the top. " Oldest. Newest." He pointed to the right end, and then to the left representing the timeline of the City. He scribed another short note for her. Hexuatl would have written the first several, but the Gods often do not speak in exacts. The entire book is his. We should look to see if they have documented how the Horned King restored the Fog at the end of the war. It will be easier if they have as that will be the very last tablet. We do not know when it was the Gods made the fog, so it could be any of the first two or three hundred. That would take much longer than pulling down one tablet and setting it so that they could both see it. It occurred to him that Mirielle Merlon needed a translator, something so that she could actually decipher the script which was not normally written in the Common language. Once he had the tablet set down, he very quickly wrote her a note, translating the letters of the Crokodon script into common and scribbling a few basic notes, such as Proper Nouns having their own specific symbol not replicated for any other name and that sometimes they sentences wouldn't make sense as they could be written in lyrical format, haiku's, even entirely based on metaphors and similes. It was a convoluted language indeed, that sometimes left much to be desired in the way of proper descriptions.
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Post by Mirielle Merlon on Jan 31, 2017 4:31:29 GMT
Those notes received pride of place in her sketchbook, and she began picking up key words in fairly short order, but her odds of contributing had just gone way, way down. Instead, she began to take charcoal rubbings of any tablets that had those key words, pausing occasionally to show them to Taun-Lok. The process of instituting the fog, whatever that process had looked like, might well have overlapped across multiple tablets, spanning a good deal of time.
On the plus side, his people's word for the fog was a proper noun, with its own unique symbol. After her first couple of false positives, she settled into a groove while scanning the earliest plaques. One tablet after another, one line at a time, she hunted for that symbol. Religious language tended to be extremely static, especially when written records were involved, and the earliest tablets looked much like the last.
Within perhaps an hour, she'd located and taken rubbings of five tablets that bore the symbol for the fog. Otherwise, she could only pick up a small handful of words, not nearly enough to create a sense of context. She laid the five tablets in a semicircle and dusted the grime of ages off her silk toga.
"Are these relevant?"
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Post by Taun-Lok on Jan 31, 2017 5:08:21 GMT
The Tablets she had located were the last five tablets of the War of the Dead, the First Cataclysm of the City of Gold that marked the end of the Second Age. On them wrote the Scribe Mazdagan a notable Elder of the Mage Caste. The Ancestor Spirits are fickle. Their visions come to them in glimpses and they further dilute them with their riddles. If they were not so accurate once deciphered, their warnings would be worthless. Today Hexuatl would not stop mentioning a Third Born of a Ruler from the North who needed our help, in the short time we were able to commune with them. Our army can barely keep the dead out of the center of the city, much less march out. Totutl remains the most helpful of the Ancestor Spirits and provided the Mage Caste with the first riddles of how they captured the things they needed for their rituals, but it does us little good. The last Queztacoatlus died years ago so there is no way to collect the Top of a Cloud.
~
The Horned One has the Ancestor Spirits guarded now. The Oracles and the Mages are only able to commune with the Spirits when he is busy with the defense of the city during a major incursion of the dead. We had thought when he rallied the broken Warrior Caste into a fresh army that he would herald a revival of our people, and it appears he intends to, but on his own terms. Even the traditional members of the Warrior caste, few as they are, are not permitted access to the Ancestor Spirits while he and his Priest-Warriors guard it.
It has made seeking their guidance quite difficult in the last year. Totutl has warned us of the coming of a conqueror in the guise of a savior, but we didn't see it until he had taken control of the young and conscripted them into his new Caste of devoted followers. Hexuatl warns of the end of our people, but despite all that is happening, the War has taken a turn in our favor after six centuries of losing ground and sections of the city, He actually retook the grounds and the walls this year. None of us can imagine how the end is near with the Horned One guiding the people to victory after victory.
~
The Grand Mage and High Oracle were able to commune with the Ancestor Spirits during a battle to get the final pieces of the puzzle to the puzzle we had been working out for sometime now.
The Divine Fog was made by the Ancestor Spirits to buy our people time to stablize and establish ourselves, but it was never intended to last forever. The Five Spirits cast a number of rituals upon themselves that Hexuatl detailed the casting, but not the purposes of the different rituals.
We have deciphered the two important ones, where they trapped themselves in limbo so they would not cross to the other side but be forever held in the World between Worlds. And we have found most of the information regarding their ritual self-sacrifice to create the Divine Fog.
Grom-Taq advised us that actions have been well planned, and if we succeed they will be quickly executed. No one knows what he means but we have assumed the Undead have some treachery planned.
~
Nine of the eldest Mages and Six of the greatest Oracles plan on following through with the Ritual to empower the fog once more and restore the bounty of the Earth, Sea, and Air for a time. The Five Ancestor spirits were powerful in their time, but who knows how fifteen of our own compare to them and how long it will last with our preparations. One can only hope it lasts long enough to see an end to the age of the undead.
We have prepared the other objects, the Dagger of Jet, the top of a cloud provided by the Oracles who had their eldest fly up himself to collect it, the heart of the World Eater which was harder to find the worm than collect its heart, the Moonstone, even the place of power below the Temple of the Mages for them to seal themselves into. There isn't time to for the other rituals so they and their wisdom will be lost to us once they complete their ritual and restore the Fog in the way it was made.
~
As far as anyone can tell, the ritual casting worked. Even the earth has been restored and the trees are showing buds upon them of fruit. The fish have returned. The last of the Undead were destroyed earlier this morning and no more can be seen inside the protection provided by the Fog.
One troubling matter is that the Horned One claims he slew the Elders, and that the restoration of the land and the disappearance of the Dead is because the Ancestor Spirits, he calls them Gods, are pleased with that sacrifice and that they need to cleanse the non-believers in order to bring about the change. The Priest-Warriors need to be dealt with before they become more than a fanatical cult, but the Warrior Caste is basically non-existent and they hold sway with the remaining Oracles.
The Horned One has dubbed himself the Horned King, Voice of the Gods and Holy Eldest. It is a small wonder the other Ancients died in the past year during the battles given how much he has done now. His first act was to order the execution of the Mage Caste, and the dissolution of the Warrior and Oracle Castes. With the Ancestor Spirits sealed inside the Pyramid now no one has the power or following to stop him. It seems this was the Great Betrayal Grom-Taq warned us about almost a year ago.
I am placing the ritual scrolls in the chamber with the bodies of the Elders. The Priest-Warriors don't even know that place exists, so they will be safe there for the time being, though I don't know why I've bothered to keep writing or for whom it is for.
Heavy words to be read by Taun-Lok, the descendent of the Horned One and heir of the dynasty the Horned One had created. The warrior translated the tablets and then sat in silence, his blue eyes staring into the distance while he contemplated what would come next. Could it even be true? And if it were truth and not lies, what would he do? Mirielle Merlon
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