4. The Search For Magiq: Peering Arts

Harsh… but fair. :-)

So…

The Eye told me that if the Mountaineers were successful, the new age would only dawn with an unseen event that would catalyze the story, an event that would be decades in the making. An event that would stretch across time, tome, and affiliation, ringing in a hard-fought and hard-won age. The Book of Briars.

…this sounds like the Monarch Papers,right? Decades in the making, stretch across time, involved lots of affiliations. Or is there another unseen, decades long event ahead of us? Might we actually be decades away from the Book of Briars? What is even happening?!

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It may be completely over-analyzing this, but my first thought on “the stone that hid them” was the Veil hiding us. Could this mean that Monarch’s Mountain had their own Veil of sorts that helped them stay hidden from the Silver for so long? And if theirs was broken, the information they left might include a way to figure out how it was broken that we could use?

Or it could have just been a figure of speech. :woman_shrugging:

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Have we heard anything else from any of the tomes?

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Well they saw speak of the devil and he shall appear.
I was making breakfast and had my Journal sitting on my table. As I tried to move it to sit down I found out it was stuck to the surface. It had grown literal crystal shards into my table.
I opened it and found a really faint image and some information.
I tried to recreate it as best I could
Here’s the image


And the info

The Silver has, by all accounts, retreated to lick their wounds after The Day of Change. Guide willing, it will be a while before we hear from them again.

But I have to be vigilant, for us, for the Mountaineers, because new threats are emerging.

A small group of the Mountain had been researching recent changes in the flow of magic and ways to try and correct it. Established rules that are changing or reversing, mundane spell outcomes becoming unpredictable, sometimes even dangerous.

And safeguards beginning to fail all over the world.

Even the Joradians, the oldest, purest, and most reliable of the safeguards.

Much of the Low, Basecamp 33, our own servers, are all protected by some form of Joradian. If they fall, the “Magiqverse” as we know it will fall.

Is it the Silver or some other force? Some fundamental change occurring?
Or just the end of magic?

We were all dead set on bringing about a new age, two worlds rebound in butterfly wings, but I for one never once considered we’d have to watch the old age die first.

And I never considered if we’d all survive the ending.

I don’t resent that these few look to me as their leader, it’s helped us accomplish so much, but as always, I more often feel like a liar than a leader. Pulling innocents down a black hall, promising I see the light at the end.

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So it 100% was Ascender. Given how they left things, Eaves is going to have some hardcore feels about that.

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Yeah… This is getting messier and messier.

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I wonder if those symbols are runes they created (or someone else created that they used) that go along with each element.

So, do we wait for 6 responses and hope it provides a coherent picture, or do we try to tell Eaves what’s going on now and give him what info we have sooner? Assuming we even can?

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I’d say let’s bring Eaves up to date. Eaves may have some ideas about what to expect next and possibly what to do. That’s is as soon as we have an open circuit to accomplish this.

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Okay, am I the only one still wondering why we’re getting Ascender’s thoughts here? Was it the breakdown of the Joradian safeguard that allowed the veil to take hold? Or is this breakdown related to the formation of the veil in some way?

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It’s curious for sure. Unfortunately there’s only one way to know for sure and waiting is killing me. Guide willing we’ll know everything when this is all said and done.

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If we’re getting Ascender’s thoughts/fears/ideas it means they’re part of the wall spell, and if they’re part of the wall spell, then chances are he cast it himself.

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Why do I get the feeling that this is one of those things where a parent tries sheltering their children from The Bad Thing :tm:, and ends up making it worse?

(And the kids still know, of course)

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You are certainly not the only one. I can think of at least 3 reasons why he’d do this based one what little we know.

  1. Trying to shield us until we were strong enough to fight (that’s why he left the guide open to allow us to gain more members) Edit: Ashburn said this better. :slight_smile:

  2. Having a change of heart and deciding a new age means lots of people he cares about might die, and is trying to stop us and anyone who would help us (without hurting us, of course). Maybe he hopes we’ll just give up.

  3. Collective resistance. We know the Book of Kings somewhat ‘self regulates’, when magiq is introduced and shouldn’t be. People forget things, writing dissappears, books disolve, etc. Well enough people know about us after the day of change that it triggered an unconcious ‘erasure’ effect, and the veil is just a “natural” occurance to the BoK defending itself from magiq. Since Ascender knows us better than anyone, and clearly has some conflicts it seems, his fears and doubts might be strongest powering the veil.

I like #3 for it’s poerty, but it neglects the fact it does seem someone Called the Corners, and that’s an intentional act. So this is doubtful.

However…where the heck did Ascender get the power to pull off something this large, this powerful, seemingly all by himself? Questions questions.

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Maybe Ascender didn’t do it alone?
We’ve spent all this time fretting about Silver, we didn’t even think to check in on Wool.

This feels less and less like a wall to me, and more and more like a belljar. Something to preserve us within.

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Wait so you thinking Ascender trapped us in here?

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Belljar or wall, friend or foe, I know I don’t like being stuck cut off. There’s only so much “I just want to keep you safe” before it’s no longer about that, and this is too far. Maybe it’s not intentional to be this “protective”, but whatever we find out from this spell we still need to get out from behind it.

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If that’s the case then Ascender would most certainly have had help. The backlash of doing something this big without it would be horrifying. Also I agree with @Nimueh. There’s a line and even if it was unintentionally crossed…it was still crossed.

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Yeah, you don’t put Balimora into a bell jar. That never turns out well.

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Nobody puts Bali in the corner! :wink:

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So, we’re deciding to tell Eaves everything? Like it’s been said, the two parted on really bitter terms. The best that we can hope for is that time has let Eaves heal but…

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