- Rimor I’m dying lol
- Robert Nope no you don’t. I for one hate being controlled or couped up for to long. I get stir crazy and end up running in thunderstorms and the such. It’s not pretty.
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Yeah, Eaves needs to know what we’ve found out. Maybe you or Augustus should send the message? IDK, my head is saying it should be from a friendly face, you know.
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Sure, that makes sense. I can try to draft something up tonight but did he ever respond to our last message? I can’t recall but if not wouldn’t that mean the circuit is incomplete, meaning we may have to wait till the next cycle?
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I think Bean sent something this week that took a bit to do its disappearing act, but we haven’t heard anything back yet that I’ve seen.
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So, we should probably cover the discovery of Monarch Manor… Which I am still startled to realize is just a few miles from my hometown, to be honest. Ascender, Endri, Knatz, and Bash’s progress seems like a worthy topic too. Then of course Ascender, and maybe the others as well, possible involvement in the predicament we currently find ourselves in.
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I find it funny that they’ve been huddle in an old apartment when they used to live in grandeur, karma strikes again!
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I say we hold off on any knee-jerk reactions and get the whole story from our journals before filling in Eaves and the Sanctuary.
Where does this leave us, then, with the three opposing forces the Tides entry talked about? We have 1) Us, 2) Monarch’s Mountain/Manor, 3) The Sanctuary, 4) The Silver. How does this fit into the Oracular Eye’s vision?
I really think we have more to learn before we start sharing what we know.
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I suppose another question that should be asked is: are we against the monarchs mountain AND the silver, or just the silver?
Also, should we put our trust wholeheartedly into the sanctuary? Ive read enough literature to know often the holy, good aligned organization is usually misguided or some higher ups evil. I guess the point im getting at on this one is…
If it comes down to it, are we willing to fight eaves or ascender to save ourselves.
Just a few things to keep in mind.
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I’m surprised that Knatz, our Benefactor, would allow this to happen without good reason. I agree that a spell of this magnitude likely exceeds the abilities of Ascender alone (or anyone really, save The Cagliostro). More reason to wait for more elemental shards, and his intentions, to appear in the journals.
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One last thing: I’m sure the Monarchs saw The Cataclysm, and now know that we’ve realized we’re trapped, and have forewarning that we’re trying to break free. Something else to keep in mind as we proceed.
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I personally think monarchs mountain is finished, or at least how we knew them. Those that haven’t disappeared seem to have joined ascender. We might see a new monarchs mountain in the new age but only time will tell. The sanctuary might be the new balance against the silver
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I agree no knee jerk reactions should be taken. But we have facts worth conveying in my mind. We just have to make sure we prevent assigning motivation to them.
We know enough to get started if we stick to the facts. The journal fragments we’re getting from the spell are Ascender’s thoughts. We don’t know why. Monarch’s manor is alive and in the Philadelphia Old City and their protections are dwindling, or have outright faded by now. Ascender, Bash, Knatz and Endri were there.
If this means Eaves, Alison and the others can somehow help them out, I’d be all for telling him where they are. They might need our help. Or at the least maybe they can contact them and get more info why this is all happening. I don’t want to sit back and wait if it means our friends could be getting stronger together.
I also doubt Monarch’s Mountain is finished. We’ve seen the histories of some of the Collectors and the trials they’ve endured. I doubt the current Collector is much for quitting. Fortunately they seemed willing to help Deeds when she needed it, but where is the Collector now? Why not stick around to help us when Ascender arrived? More questions.
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You make some solid points, old friend.
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Well here’s a draft of a response if we feel like trying to send one. If we even can without Eaves initiating contact. Anyone feel free to take, edit, spindle or mutilate this to make it more human sounding.
If anyone feels strongly we shouldn’t try sending this, we’ll hear it all out before we decide anything. But we should try to move with some speed. A couple days at most I’d hope, but we’ll do what we have to to make this right and if that means more time, so be it.
Eaves,
We’ve received information from two of the six journals so far, Tides and Ore. Both entries contain the thoughts of Ascender. We do not know what this means. We are trying not to assign motivation until we have a more complete picture.
After he left the the mountaineers Ascender went to find the Ocular Eye. Here’s what he found there.
When I found it, I chose Despair and Illumination.
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.
But it also told me that in that new age, there would be three opposing forces, forces representing the Eye’s three sights — Hope, Illumination, and Despair.
One new and wholly formed from belief in something better. One ancient and all-seeing. The source of this world’s shadows. And a third only beginning to coalesce, made from adumbral factions, but striving for light and learning.
Ascender and the others were holed up in an apartment building in Philadelphia’s Old City. Knatz, Endri and Bash were there at least with him. They’re protections were falling, and even the Joradian safeguards were beginning to crumble.
At the end of the second entry he revealed he was scared that if all the protections fell, everything we’ve all been fighting for would be destroyed.
I know in all likelihood these journal entries represent thoughts Ascender had over a year ago,and maybe no one is even there anymore now. But if there’s anything you, or the others can do to check in on them and aid them maybe they could use your help. And maybe they can explain to you just what exactly happened that put us in here.
I know you have rules to not reach out to for Sanctuary’s own good, but this is all going to come to a head soon. You all might be able to help one another. If not for Ascender, then for Endri, Bash and Knatz at least.
Keep safe. We’ll tell you more as we discover it.
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Endri, Bash, and Knatz.
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I assume a preponderance of likes means people are good with this. Trying. It probably won’t even work.
We’ve received information from two of the six journals so far, Tides and Ore. Both entries contain the thoughts of Ascender. We do not know what this means. We are trying not to assign motivation until we have a more complete picture.
After he left the the mountaineers Ascender went to find the Ocular Eye. Here’s what he found there.
When I found it, I chose Despair and Illumination.
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.
But it also told me that in that new age, there would be three opposing forces, forces representing the Eye’s three sights — Hope, Illumination, and Despair.
One new and wholly formed from belief in something better. One ancient and all-seeing. The source of this world’s shadows. And a third only beginning to coalesce, made from adumbral factions, but striving for light and learning.
Ascender and the others were holed up in an apartment building in Philadelphia’s Old City. The Monarch’s Manor and old lair. Knatz, Endri and Bash were there at least with him. They’re protections were falling, and even the Joradian safeguards were beginning to crumble.
At the end of the second entry he revealed he was scared that if all the protections fell, everything we’ve all been fighting for would be destroyed.
I know in all likelihood these journal entries represent thoughts Ascender had over a year ago,and maybe no one is even there anymore now. But if there’s anything you, or the others can do to check in on them and aid them maybe they could use your help. And maybe they can explain to you just what exactly happened that put us in here.
I know you have rules to not reach out to for Sanctuary’s own good, but this is all going to come to a head soon. You all might be able to help one another. If not for Ascender, then for Endri, Bash and Knatz at least.
Keep safe. We’ll tell you more as we discover it.
-Robert
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Well.
There was no obvious magiqal phenomena forming around my tome where it sat on my bookshelf, but recently everyone started to constantly ask me about it; my parents, visitors who came over - even the friends who were around a few years ago when I originally received it as a gift! They kept bringing it up in conversation.
And of course, now I realise that makes sense - that would be how the element of Thought manifests, people thinking about the tome…
Their questions made me curious as well, so I decided to open it and hope it wasn’t too premature. And it turns out there was something there!
First, here is the image - it was kinda hard to see so my drawing came out rather wonky (they’re all circles, even if they don’t look like it!).
And this is the information that appeared within:
It had been months.
We’d been piecing together what the Mountain knew. What they’d discovered, what they thought they’d discovered. What we had left wasn’t much. The few of their ranks that stayed behind knew even less. They were young, new, and hoping to keep hold of the little corner of magic they’d found in the world. It was the elders who ran with whatever they could take and a wealth of memory and knowledge. Endri had been working nonstop to make sense of what was left of the admittedly still vast library. In our taking of the building, there had been failsafes deployed. We’d broken through dozens of physical barriers, but the books, scrolls, and notes left behind had become locked figuratively, literally, or both. Encrypted, obfuscated, or physically unable to be pried open. The young ones from the Mountain knew of a digital “card catalog” but the drives had all been wiped.
Whatever “win” we thought we’d collected sure didn’t feel like one.
But then Knatz half-discovered and half-remembered how to call the Collector. Or rather, how to request an audience with the Collector.
Whoever they were, they’d been eager to help Deirdre, warning her that Monarch’s Mountain was trying to take The Little Red House , and sharing with her, and us, most of what we currently know about our altered time.
Now that the Mountain had fallen, maybe they’d be willing to share more.
We were summoned to a lighthouse on the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Knatz took a small crew to meet them. I stayed behind. She and I decided from the beginning that one of us had to watch the manor and everyone inside.
They were gone for the better part of a day with no word back to us. Then Knatz finally returned, alone.
She’d lost the rest of her crew to the Collector. Or rather, someone who was pretending to be the mythic figure.
She said they’d spent an hour talking to the old woman who claimed to be the Collector. The rest of the crew peppered the woman with questions, eager to learn something, anything, but Knatz felt like something was off from the beginning. It wasn’t obvious at first, but Knatz has a finely tuned bullshit detector. The Collector was asking more questions than she was answering.
She couldn’t say how, but she knew the Collector wasn’t in the lighthouse.
Knatz tried to leave, but things devolved quickly. Members of the Silver emerged from the cellar of the lighthouse. There was a covered mirror on the wall of the main floor, and in the rabid, scrambling fight, the sheet had been torn away. Knatz fell back to the manor as she caught sight of the “Collector’s” reflection.
Wrapped around the old woman’s back was a figure with long dark fingers that dug into the imposter’s neck. A wild, sneering woman with long hair and one white eye, controlling the old crone like a demon from some old painting, and she was staring right at Knatz through the mirror.
Somehow they knew we’d found a way to the Collector and they knew we were coming.
The Collector wasn’t in the lighthouse.
But someone from the Silver was here with us.
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I kept on trying to word my reaction in a way that’s definitely forum-friendly, wasn’t easy. This’ll do though:
I’m really starting to worry about what’s coming in the rest of the journals… 
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Ummmm nope nope nope nope
I’ll just be over here pouring salt everywhere and smashing all my mirrors
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oh WIDDERSHINS. Maybe we should all go Hermione and start checking people out with mirrors…
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