Notes

Composed of a thick parchment, unbounded except for a tightly wound piece of white string, these notes represent the bulk of the storyteller's work. Though he has told the same stories over and over, no one has yet gotten tired of his voice crooning over the din of the city.

Whenever someone asks where he learned the stories, he pauses and reflects for a moment before speaking to the waiting crowds. It always begins back when his father was barely more than a lad.

This is his story, and Mervue's story.

Keyword(s): storytellers, notes.
Level(s): 29.
Type: Furniture.
Slot(s): none.
Quality: 20 hps.
Weight: 0 lbs.
Flag(s): none.

Comments

You look at the storyteller's notes...

The storyteller's dad was no more than a young lad, twenty-one winters strong. It started innocently enough, with magic doing unintended things: spells meant to heal caused the victim to levitate; spells meant to create light for night travels instead made an aura of sanctuary around the caster. Any of the fish that made it to the shore were dead, and the Spring nights became warmer than anyone could remember in years past.

Just when worries were rising to their highest furor with riots escalating nightly, everything returned to normal one cool summer's eve.

Less than a month later, a visitor came, heralding the arrival of his master. The townsfolk scolded him, locking him in an iron cage that dangled an elf's height off the ground. For days the citizens held parties in his honor, dancing around the cage as if it were a festival pole. The man, jeered on by his captors, became emancipated and refused to eat. Having bitten the doctor who tried to heal him, the odd captive all but forced those to stay away.

As the visitor became sicker and sicker, more and more people stayed away, foregoing the festivities. On his final night before he succumbed to his illness, he was found whispering things in a demonic tongue, and lashing out against his iron confines with inhuman strength. The next night, the bars of the cage were snapped in half, a gaping hold in one side.

The body of the prisoner was found face down in a puddle, having choked to death sometime after escaping and falling to the dirt ground. At the point of death, he seemed to have been to weak to lift his own head.

The bodies of the prisoner's guards were found nearby, their skin hanging loosely from their flesh. Two by two, all of the shift guards perished to the same disease that killed their mysterious visitor, until a quarter of the city's defenses lay buried in a mass grave.

The next night, only two nights since the death of the prisoner, the city's healer fell violently ill and died. Panicked, a good portion of the city tried escaping by land or sea, only to be turned back by powerful magical wards that had appeared overnight.

The body of the prisoner was found face down in a puddle, having choked to death sometime after escaping and falling to the dirt ground. At the point of death, he seemed to have been to weak to lift his own head.

The bodies of the prisoner's guards were found nearby, their skin hanging loosely from their flesh. Two by two, all of the shift guards perished to the same disease that killed their mysterious visitor, until a quarter of the city's defenses lay buried in a mass grave.

The next night, only two nights since the death of the prisoner, the city's healer fell violently ill and died. Panicked, a good portion of the city tried escaping by land or sea, only to be turned back by powerful magical wards that had appeared overnight.

Raistlin, a wandering mage living on the outskirts of the town, was commissioned by public vote to investigate the wards. Not much information was gathered, except that the wards were invisible when covered in sunlight.

As children and families fell sick and perished, the city grew more frantic in their attempts to escape the magical bounds, though to no avail. As all hope began to fade, a stranger arrived one cold winter's morn, able to penetrate the wards with ease. When the villagers reached him, he spoke of ignorance of the magical ways. At the urging of the villagers, he demonstrated how he was able to leave and come as he pleased, though none could follow.

The villagers begged the mysterious stranger to leave and seek assistance from Midgaard, to which he readily agreed. In return, they gave him a strong horse and three days worth of supplies. He departed that hour, riding his hour so hard that it kicked up clouds of dirt that could be seen for half a mile.

Scarcely two nights after, the visitor returned, panting hard after having ridden the horse without stopping since his departure. He spoke haltingly of reinforcements arriving soon, being gathered by the elite townguards stationed in Midgaard, and with a last gasp of breath, he handed them a folded piece of paper.

Brave citizens,

We have received your summons and are coordinating a rescue effort as we speak. We will arrive two nights after the bearer of this note.

Aelmon,

Ruler of the city of Midgaard

As darkness fell twice more, several guildmasters arrived wrapped in winter cloaks, along with a legion of the land's most renowned Heroes not far behind.

Both the clerical and priest guildmasters huddled together by the cage that till held the deceased body of the prisoner. The magic holders took it on themselves to examine the wards with a hasty caution. The fighters assembled by the cage momentarily, before branching out in all directions, clear disdain in their voices regarding the healers' passive ways. And then time shifted.

The first indication: strangers walked through the town, shades of their self, sometimes considered illusions of something grander by the healers. The shadows walked with confidence, no fear in their bright eyes. Paying no attention to the city folk, they vanished by morning only to reappear at night, heralded by a scream. Raistlin stood by a ward he had been examining as darkness began to fall, numbly staring at the newest shade. Unlike the other shades that had appeared previously, this one was agitated, muttering silent as he paced back and forth on phantom feet. The shade was Raistlin, right down to the dirt-streaked magician's robes Raistlin was fond of wearing, though his mentality was not the same. Before anyone could speak, the world shifted once more.

When the dust settled, the Midgaardians would speak of a great battle to their leader, Aelmon, telling him of the bravery of the fighters.

A nameless great evil had risen from the rift in time, pulling all into its domain. Though the evil was eventually defeated after a lengthy battle, when the fighters returned back to their own world, the city they had been investigating lay in ruins, its inhabitants gone from this world. The only person alive to greet them was Raistlin, and though he was fully flesh, he acted strangely more like the shade previously encountered, as if the real Raistlin no longer existed and was also lost in the grips of time. Insanity tinted the poor man's words, and nothing would ever be gained about the destruction of the city by him.

For a long time, the city lay in ruins, destroyed by what some would later call the Hand of God, the damage greater than any had seen before -- though the evil that was committed could not be caused by an Avatarian God. Eventually Lord Audis took up the charge of rebuilding the city from scratch, finding new settlers to take the old ones' places, though no one would ever pry the reason from his lips. And he called the city Mervue, after the mistress of the Sea, and thus was the city borne from the ashes of the old, defying Time once more.

Directions

Walking route from Aelmon: 26s,e.

Walking route from Giles: w, 3s, e.

Portaling point suggested: Storyteller.