Caravu Celemris' 'Solrasia' I: First Steps Into Black Midlen (Books of Nasrathean History)

  

As written by Caravu Celemris, in the Year 472 A.T.

Second Age of the Nasrathean Cycle - The Third Cycle of Nasullean Planar Time 

A personal illustration, depicting one of the three strange statues hidden beneath the shadow of Crystalpeak, as decribed by Aidan Gildous

13 A.T. – It was a small expedition of Nasra who first chose to delve into the western edges of the city proper, skirting the boundaries between the region known today as the Boundary Lakes, and the crushing dark of the infinitely deep Great-Chasm that surrounds the cradle of the Nasra absolutely. They’d heard tales, you see – of great riches and great discoveries, and, long before the decree of His Eminence, the Dragonking Solrais, that each and all must stay clear of such dark corners and their temptations of wealth. Of course, all such decrees are typically born of strife, periods of unrest that bring distress to our society’s security. In this case, the history books very much speak for themselves, for the opening of these old pathways revealed a myriad of ancient knowledge and even more ancient artefacts, studied and utilized by the people with such a thorough disregard and abandon, that it would be remembered in the city’s history as the Crystalbrand Era.

 

“Why Crystalbrand?” I hear you ask. It’s a good question, one better left for another chapter. Suffice it to say that those ruins and old, dead places left their mark on the people who entered them, or chose to wield the treasures they stole from their timeless wielders. Quite why this occurred is debated by the scholars of Idral even today. Not a single able mind who has researched the notorious branding has found themselves agreeing with another on the significance of the marks, nor the cloudy golden light that takes the eyes of those who are afflicted. Strange maladies, dissected endlessly and never put together again the same way. This tome will not entertain them as more than cursory points of fact, instead, it will tell the tale of the earliest sojourns into the dark, the key historical figures linked to those journeys, and the secrets it is said they uncovered.

I: Frandel’s Discoveries

No book on the earliest revelations of the Nasra, following the harrowing events of the Battle of Dawn and the resettling of the city formerly known as Midlen, would be complete without the inclusion of Idral Frandel, founder of the famed Idral Academy, of his namesake, better known today as Frandel the Mad.

 

Frandel was an outlier of our kind – a highly intelligent sorcerer by many accounts, prone to irrational outbursts and periods of intense inspiration that would lead to many inventions we still use to this day, such as time-locks and pocket dials, the discovery of the lumencrystal, and the binding enchantments that lock the blades of our Guard-Captains and Knight-Commander to their current rightful wielders. Rumours are abound that even the recent discovery of fire crystals and sorceries, leading to the invention of readily available warm water which runs through long, steel cylinders known as ‘pipelays,’ were originally unearthed from the countless notes and journals kept locked away beneath Idral Academy. Frandel was a nasrine of many words, and even more plentiful ideas – ideas that could reasonably have been inspired by the discoveries he made at the Tomb of Silversong, and every tome thereafter.

Silversong is the name given to a body trapped in crystal, almost immaculately preserved remains that put on display a strange being for all to see. Illustrations of this body can be retrieved from Idral Academy upon special request. I can confirm that I have even seen the drawing with mine very own eyes, and to state that it bears an uncanny resemblance to us, as Nasra, is an understatement, save for the eyes, the ears, and a certain length and narrowness to it’s form that makes it appear as though a full head above even the most robust of nasrine mercenaries. The ears are pointed, you see, much like the ears that can be found on the Ring-Face statues of the Boundaries, and the creature’s eyeholes appear like angled slits, though they remain void of any eyes. Those had seemingly been scooped out before internment, by whoever might have interned the creature. As for how it was granted the name of Silversong, the notes accompanying the illustration speak of a gentle hum, almost natural in it’s origin, emanating from the crystal that encased his body.

 

This scribble of an observation could be found next to an even smaller note which appeared to suggest that Frandel recognized similarity in features between Silversong and our creator, the most holy Weaver. Blasphemous words to speak aloud, I know this for certain, however having seen the illustration for myself, I can’t help but agree. The narrow, pointed jaw, the ears that taper to the point of a knife-tip, and the stature they both carry are remarkably similar.

 

From this expedition he is known to have retrieved a staff of sorts, capable of expelling sorceries from it’s tip. This staff can still be observed within the archives of Idral, though it is locked within a case of lerutium-coated glass, all requests to look upon it being vetted and monitored by two Blackguard Knights. It’s power must be great indeed.

 

When Frandel emerged from this tomb, he spoke to the people of all the treasures he had witnessed, how the chamber had been lined with artefacts of all kinds, murals depicting curious events unknown to our people, unrecorded in any of our Dawning Age scriptures. This talk of unearthed histories contradicted the teachings of the Weaver, and his tale of our being the first to settle these lands as passed down by Dragonking Solrais. As you might expect, it did not take long for Aidan Gildous, the first Knight-Commander himself, to begin investigating his tales, and for the hammer to come down on all adventures into the fabled tunnels and crypts below the streets of Solrasia.

 

Frandel would soon be forbidden from travelling below the city, though it barely put a stop to his plans. He would disappear somewhere down there, beneath our very feet twenty-five years later, in the lumbreeze of the year thirty-eight, After Tiralis. Speculation is, naturally, abound on what became of him, with hypotheses ranging from the simple, such as a wraith attack leaving him severely wounded, to the near humorously far-fetched, such as his finding a gateway to another land, and choosing not to return upon looking upon this mythical land’s tantalizing array of mysteries to be unravelled.

 

Though it might be easy to assume the Firstguard forbid all access to the darkness below because of Frandel’s discoveries, that is not entirely the case. As stated previously, many artefacts were dredged from those old places and brought to the surface, so many in fact, that they caused the crystalbrand affliction, in which patches of skin begins to shimmer and turn hard from prolonged exposure to certain mystical items. While records are rather torn on the exact dates, the retrieval of these artefacts is thought to have continued for some ten years before all expeditions were ceased, and considered to be unlawful in the eyes of the Dragonking. Indeed, it said that even the five Hautashon, the blades of the five Guard-Captains, as well as Melsembril, the Knight-Commanders very own ceremonial sword – an esteemed sign of honour and rank within the city – were all originally found below, and that their binding rituals and enchantments were discovered by Frandel soon after they were adopted for use within the Firstguard. Quite why these artefacts were allowed to stay, and yet others were forced to be vaulted beneath Idral, is a mystery not too difficult in it’s solution, for when have the Firstguard not considered themselves above the populace they oversee? A trait of theirs which dates all the way back to Aidan Gildous himself, who was not above charting his own expeditions beneath the city, until the practice was outlawed.

II: The Firstguard, and the Lake Below

The final expedition lead by Aidan Gildous, into the under-darkness now affectionately known as Black Midlen, could be considered as the catalyst for the order to seal all entrances, and lock it’s tantalizing secrets away forever-more.

 

According to his own writings, the unease toward the crypts and tunnels had finally begun to settle upon him when descending a now-lost spiral stairwell – the ruins of an old tower, perhaps, somewhere deep within the far north-western Auldérhills, in the shadow of Crystalpeak Mountain. He writes that this tower extended “for some distance into the dark below, the sounds of dripping water, and gentle waves lapping at a distant shoreline, causing great unease.” His writings lack descriptiveness in general, instead being written through the voice of himself as an official of the city guard. He goes on to state that upon reaching the bottom, he and his company happened upon a “lake, great and wide, a single stone bridge connecting the shoreline to a solitary island at it’s center.” This island beheld three imposing statues – knife-eared beings, much like the Ring-Faces, and the mummified remains of Silversong, except these were depicted as wearing great flowing robes, the mystery of this people’s eyes now being revealed as three in pupil, forming a triangle of points at the center of the iris. Aidain’s company approached the statues and “stared in wonder for a moment, unsure of what to make of the strange beings.”

 

He often makes reference to the similarities between their image, and the image of the Weaver. Another who made the connection of his own accord.

 

Not wanting to linger in those dark spaces for too long, he writes finally of how Melsembril seemed to shudder and glow in the presence of these statues. On that morning he pulled the sword from it’s scabbard, and stumbled upon a secret little-known to any but the most learned of martial scholars: Melsembril, when swiped forth in the correct environment, appears capable of cutting the very air itself. He writes of how he tore the space between the statues like it was cloth, and a “light so strange came pouring forth, washing my mind in visions – visions of a great shadow swallowing an unnamed city whole, born of a falling star. The voices started then.” He ran from that place with his company, and by the time Lerulias set upon that day, a decree had been formed forbidding all from descending below.

 

Quite a different story than the one given, of Crsytalbrand being the reason those old roads remain sealed today, four-hundred and fifty years later, isn’t it? Another fantastic mystery, suffocated by the fears and insecurities of the Firstguard and other zealous forms of Weaverite.

 

So, what might we make of this tale? Well, we can infer that the city below is home to unfathomable secrets, there can be no doubt. Quite why only those stranger places were not sealed, and the rest left for us to traverse and discover, I’m unsure. We know the city of Mirgrove exists a considerable distance beneath the eastern trails of Solrasia, it’s lights sometimes visible along the inner wall of the Great-Chasm on especially dark nights. Why is it that those roads were deemed to be safe, and yet the roads below the central and western districts are considered as beyond our permission?

 

Bureaucracy and age-old superstition, I am sure.

III: Final Considerations

While there are many accounts and descriptions from the earliest days of the Nasra, pertaining to the roads below, the subterranean lands sometimes called Black-Midlen, few of the accounts could be considered reliable. I mean no disrespect to the earlier writings of our race course, but when considering a subject of such magnitude and mystery, I find it best to stick with sources known and trusted. One last such source is a nisrel by the name of Cangally (no family name given, most likely to preserve anonymity). She is known to have written countless books about the city, ranging from it’s architecture to its sewer systems; its historically significant people, to its diverse flora and fauna. In one such tome, simply titled ‘Who Rules the Land Below?’ She posits the idea that someone, or something still lives in those old places, with evidence taken from her extensively unlawful sojourns into the old roads, and even a few Firstguard outposts not marked on any map – and which she claims are actively being hidden from public knowledge!

 

Her journals speak of places where towers descend from great cavern ceilings, artefacts made of crystal, scattered throughout ancient, stone-mason carved dwellings, and wide roads that run great distances into the dark. She makes frequent mention of similar voices to the ones noted by Aidan Gildous, and haunting presences watching from afar that cause the hairs of her arms stand on end.

 

If these observations are not reason enough to open the paths into those old places again, then what, truly, could really be reason enough?

 

Soon, I will have to find a way into the dark myself, and write tomes of my own on the many strange secrets that lie in wait down there, begging to be unearthed once more.

- Caravu Celemris, a Scholar of Tolm