I noticed Eaves’s recent post, what in the world is going on? Is everything alright? Who is “Our Leader”? Is it Ascender? I’m a little bit confused ^^; I didn’t want to ask this silly of a question on the post, since it was directed towards whoever. What has happened? Sorry for the dumb question!
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Not a dumb question. From my understanding, the Mountaineers have been around since the early 90s. Ascender has been their leader since then. At least I THINK that’s the history. Ascender actually posted (what I took to be) a farewell letter a couple months ago and hasn’t been heard from since. I don’t know what the relationship between Eaves and Ascender is like, but if they’ve known each other for a quarter century I’m sure it’s rich and complicated. I’m sure there’s frustration with having the one who’s been leading the charge of all this to suddenly bow out when real progress is finally being made. I just hope Ascender is okay and hasn’t disappeared under nefarious circumstances.
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Interesting. Did they even explain why they were leaving? It seems strange to me… 
If they just suddenly up and left, as well as not replying to any kind of contact for months, it doesn’t sound right. It sounds really suspicious actually. Then again it could just be my brain trying to link things together that really aren’t, its what complex puzzles do to you, or me anyways. I hope Ascender is alright, but its kind of mean to just leave us. If they left because progress wasn’t being made for such a long time and felt it was a lost cause, okay that’s fine and all, but its seems that Eaves has told them about what has been going on. You’d assume that they would come back at that point, so perhaps that’s not the case?
Though, I don’t want to start drawing conclusions without knowing the whole story. Where’s that “farewell letter” at?
Edit: I think I found it?? I’m not sure. Maybe.
Another Edit: After reading it all over… I feel so bad for you guys. It seems that Ascender should be okay but that he feels he must leave it to us all. If he really did believe all of what he wrote, it sounds like he’d risk losing the people he cared about, to follow how he thinks the book is supposed to be opened up, making sure to not mess up some kind of order. I’m sure he still cares, but feels like this is what he has to do. I dunno, maybe that remedies the situation a little. I don’t really know it all, so who knows!
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Oh oh oh! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now and this is the perfect chance. I’m sure more people will be or are asking the same questions as you @TheBellsAreRinging and we can help them out. One moment.
(Professor Robert pulls out his briefcase, removing a tweed jacket with elbow patches and a pair of horn rimmed glasses. After donning both he pauses for just a moment to wonder where he got a briefcase from.)
Now, settle down class and we’ll discuss…
Mountaineer History 101
First off Ms. Bells, that’s not a dumb question. Statistics tells us that for every 1 person brave enough to ask aloud a question they are afraid is ‘dumb’ there are 5.7 people in the room with the exact same question who are just pretending they know what’s going on and are afraid to ask. (As a corollary 1 person in 3 just stopped reading this to wonder what 0.7 of a person looks like…but that risks us going down a rather odd tangent and is neither here nor there).
As contemporary reference we are currently in the third “iteration” of the Mountaineers. (I hesitate to use the word ‘generation’ at risk of making @Ascender and @Endri feel old)
The First Iteration
We know very little about the first iteration of the Mountaineers. What we do know primarily comes from Ascender’s ‘You are the Mountaineers’ post. He referred to this group as the “'94 Mountaineers” so we’ll go with that for the time being.
To summaraize.
-There were once many in this group.
-Some “thing” “came for the other '94s”.
-At the end there were only 2 mountaineers remaining, Asecender and a friend of his known as “Augernon”.
-Ascender chose to flee everything in his life. He stopped using his name while travelling. He never stays in a place long, and to date he has seemingly evaded the ‘thing’.
-Augernon (colloquially known as ‘Augie’) stayed behind with his family. When the ‘thing’ caught up with him it removed all knowledge of the ‘truth’ from him, turning into a shell of a human being. Augie recently was known to reside in a mental health facility in Maryland and is rarely coherent to those around him.
The Second Iteration
Sometime after this a group of people (Endri, Eaves, Bash and Itsuki) came together on a message board in 1994 to discuss a collection of books they remember that everyone else has forgotten. This group was contacted by Ascender and the began to research the ‘Lost Collection’ by Ackerly Green publishing.
This second iteration of the Mountaineers took it’s name from a pamphlet ‘someone’ had found in an estate sale talking about an old organization dedicated to collection and protecting ancient knowledge. This organization was known as “Monarch’s Mountain” Liking the idea, they adopted the name Mountaineers. Among their many important accomplishments was finding and rebuilding the Guide to Magiq which I believe we are all familiar with.
The Third Iteration (US)
This culminated in the third iteration when the guide went live and brought most of us into the group. Augie told Ascender that great things are coming, and that this iteration will help find the truth. Augie also told Ascender that the second iteration would be more of a support role and not find the answers directly.
After his ‘You are the Mountaineer’s’ message, Ascender has barely been heard from since, and it is this absence that Eaves refers too, I believe.
This, of course, is not a complete history. The unknown ‘thing’ that ended the first group of mountaineers is of particular concern. Given Brandon’s recent warnings of a dark storm on the horizon, it’s hard not to draw a parallel. While the first mountaineers were possibly caught unaware and/or too few in number to fight back, we hope to face this challenge with a different outcome.
Mountaineer History - Tin foil hat edition
Let’s discuss the Green family, shall we?
Warner Green
Warner Green (father of Sullivan Green, grandfather of Deidre Green) served in WWII in North West Europe potentially in some sort of top secret capacity. While all soldiers see horrors during war that can (if you forgive the sanitized colloquialism) “turn your poo white”, Warner may have seen more than most.
It’s conjectured that Warner returned from WWII in 1945 in possession of various “supernatural materials”. Given Hitler’s penchant for gathering all things occult, it’s not a far stretch to think this may have been items confiscated during a raid or at the conclusion of a battle. It’s here we think the ‘Lost Collection’ of books first came into our awareness.
Sullivan Green
Warner’s son, Sullivan, took over his father’s publishing company in 1978. This business lasted an entire year until it burned down for heretofore unknown reasons.
After that Orvin tells us that Sullivan ‘travelled the world…he bought books and strange pieces of art’. The whereabouts of these artifacts are unknown. Virtually nothing is heard of or known of Sullivan for most of the 80’s.
In 1992 Sullivan had Diedre, and some time very early in her life (say…1994 perhaps?) he sent his young Daughter to Ireland to live with relatives.
Tin foil hat territory
I put forth the (totally made up) theory that the Green family were gathering up arftifacts and information regarding the ‘truth’ for some reason. Perhaps because Warner had seen it in the hands of evil and wanted to prevent that in the future. He may have then passed this desire to gather and protect artifacts and ancient knowledge to Sullivan. In short, I’m putting forth the theory that the Green family were part (or the entirety) of the Monarch Mountain organization from which we take our name.
Whether or not the first iteration of Mountaineers knew the Greens, or they were actually collaboratorating is beyond even my half-ass abilities to guess.
Deidre Green
Given Deidre’s use of a butterfly on her blog, it’s possible she remembers something of this from her childhood, and has a fondness for the creature she cannot explain. Sullivan sought to protect his daughter, quite possibly from ‘the thing’ that took our first iteration. It’s my belief the odd collection of things he left her were steps on a path to continue her family’s work. So far, she seems up to the challenge.
And that’s all I know and can guess of our history.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I stole some poor man’s briefcase and need to give it back.
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Thanks Professor! 
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Yeah “everything” was a lot of pressure. 
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@TheBellsAreRinging, you’re doing great. Topic naming is an art, not a science. I’m still working it out myself. I aim for being clear to someone who’s just joined the forum.
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