Fragment Three: Obenhedge
Overview
Fragment Three ran concurrently with Fragment Two (the only time two fragments ran simultaneously). All attempts to contact Deirdre through her blog had been met with a wall of sorts. Nothing the Mountaineers said or did could get through, and they could not make comments. One person, however, was able to add comments: a user called The Last of the Travelers. Every time Deirdre would post a new blog entry, the Last Traveler would respond, each time with two lines of what seemed to be poetry.
Attempts by the recruits to find the source of the poem were unsuccessful, as it didn’t seem to match anything in their vast library of records. On a hunch, some of the recruits attempted to reply to the Last Traveler’s comments, and while their correspondence with Deirdre was blocked, it seems the Last Traveler could see their words and reply. To each unique recruit who spoke with the Last Traveler, he would reply with another section of the poem.
As the recruits reconstructed the poem that would come to be known as The Minnying of Ojorad, another important fact came to light: the Traveler was slipping away. With each message, his words became more and more incomprehensible. It was as if the act of reaching out was sapping what little strength he had to communicate.
After compiling most of the Minnying, it was discovered that the rhyme scheme of the first two stanzas unlocked a page within the Book of Briars, featuring a single word: ‘Obenhedge’. The recruits reached out to Cole Sumner to see if he had dreamt of this particular plant, as he had with the FrayLily. It turned out he had, but he had limited recollection of the poem, only knowing that it was important.
The last two lines of the poem were received by Deirdre Green herself, in a note inside a copy of The Wolf and the Wild that she had bought. The note was signed “LT.” When the recruits combined these last two words with the rest of the Minnying, it triggered Cole’s memory, and he remembered the other word which had the same meaning as ‘Obenhedge’: ‘Vhelicorus.’ This turned out to be the third fragment.