Chapter Four Part 1
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: Chapter Four, Part 1
Author: Sirideain
Fourth Chapter: Shattered Legacy
Following the death of Mondain, Mondain's remains - his heart, brain, and an arm - came into the possession of monks of the Brotherhood of the Rose. Each year since, the remains had been put on display in commemoration of the Stranger's victory, and 300 years after Mondain's defeat, the next place for display was Vesper.
The fates of the shards of the shattered Gem, however, were unknown until that time. Some may wonder how there may be gems within the worlds if the worlds are in the gems, but rest assured many saw them with their own eyes. Scattered throughout the land were strange tombstones with odd riddles, and the solution to these riddles lead seekers to find those lost shards, but the shards themselves also offered riddles, and these led to a prophecy:
"Upon a day when snow doth fall, A gathering will form of noblemen, Among them some who quarrel still, Between free will and the civil man. Whilst watched by mice and monsters both, A challenge shall be made, That breaketh lances and severs growth, And stains fair grass with hate. Perhaps one day shall reconcile, Two men whose hearts were once the same. Till then the world shall tremble dire, And none shall fix the blame."
Within the week, Lord British issued a proclamation that to stem the growing tide of crime and murder in the land, an order of knights were to be established who would wear shields bearing the king's symbol of the silver serpent and bring order to the land. Lord Blackthorn in response also established a knighthood to bear his own symbol and to oppose tyranny. The two resolved that these orders of knights would have leave to fight freely, even within the cities, without interference of the guards.
In the wake of these announcements, the city of Wind, long forgotten, revealed itself to the world and invited the most skilled mages to join Wind and pursue the principle of Balance. The Order and Chaos knights continue to battle unabated, regardless, even to this day.
Only a great disturbance in the aether could have called the shards from the deep, and from our historical perspective, we can guess at the cause of that disturbance: our Britannia's first encounter with another facet. By that time in Ilshenar, the Ilshenarians had banished the four Followers of Armageddon Martoo Saul, Junin Pince, Zendella Kxriss, and Miron Vehl through their facet gate of Justice. The place to which they were banished was our own Britannia. The Followers immediately set about insinuating themselves into positions of influence. They began to collect bits of blackrock, the most rare of substances, and horde it in secret caches throughout Britannia. The peculiar property of blackrock is that it can block and channel aetherial waves as no other substance can. One application of this effect is to open gateways between dimensions, such as those the Cabal used to contact the dark wisps.
They saved the blackrock for a time when they would need to consult with those allies again. Allies in Britannia were gathered under the name of the Zog Cabal but were never inducted into the true ethos of the Cabal in Ilshenar, nor made aware of the existence of that facet.
The relics of Mondain, and their keeper, Brother Olic, were captured by orcs on the road travelling from Vesper to Britain, but Olic was rescued and the relics redisplayed in Britain. In all likelyhood, this was the first move of the cabalists, who were still unknown to the people of Britannia.
There was, however, another villain who might have desired the relics, and none can say for certain who it really was who tried to steal them in Vesper.
The cabal entered public view by the murder of an upstanding man, Hartham the weapons trainer of Trinsic. The criminal was found by Crawworth the captain of the guards to be a man named Duryn, who however revealed nothing of use before taking his own life. At Hartham's wake, a man appeared who revealed the murder to be but the first act of an agenda to frustrate Order and Lord British's desire to unify the shards, enacted by an organization calling itself the Zog Cabal.
Investigation yielded little information about the Cabal, but the scrutiny uncovered gold embezzled by the paladin Juo'Nar. Juo'Nar was banished from Trinsic.
Shortly after, Britannia was beset on three fronts. Twin liches Lathiari and Kyrnia raised the dead in vile experiments, Juo'Nar the fallen paladin harried Trinsic with armies of demihumans, and trolls staked a claim to the northern shore of Vesper.
Speculation ran rampant that the Zog Cabal masterminded it all from behind the scenes, but the Cabal's agenda lay on entirely different lines. Nevertheless, Crawworth resigned his position in Trinsic to dedicate his time to revealing the Cabal. In his stead, Flinth Desryn became the new captain of Trinsic's guard.
Rather than being agents of the Cabal, Juo'Nar, the lich twins, and the trolls were agents of a new threat, entirely unsuspected by anyone at the time. Minax was by then aware of the multitude of other facets on the shard. She did not yet have the means to travel between facets, but she was able to communicate across them. She instructed the troll brothers G'Splat and G'Thunk to unify their people to regain what was lost to Uulther Malphane, and she told Juo'Nar of the magical necklace that he employed to command orcs and lizardmen.
Despite this assistance, the trolls failed in their objectives. G'Splat was slain, and afterward the trolls' resolve evaporated.
Juo'Nar pressed Britannia's ability to defend itself, drawing attention to attacks on the shrines while raiding supply caravans. One such raid led to the death of the wife of Flinth Desryn. Desryn redoubled his efforts at locating Juo'Nar, until with the help of Brother Olic, Juo'Nar was at last found in Ocllo and slain. Notably, neither G'Thunk nor the body of Juo'Nar were accounted for when all was said and done.
(Cont. in Part 2)