Chapter Three Part 2
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: Chapter Three, Part 2
Author: Sirideain
Third Chapter: Rise of the Britannian Kingdom
The Western cities
prospered, as Britain
completed reconstruction
and Yew continued to
enjoy peace. Lord
British decreed that the
Court of Truth be built
in Yew to serve Justice.
In Trinsic, Dupre became greatly admired, and his ideals of Honor widely emulated. Those who followed this ideal were called paladins, and their guildhall in the center of Trinsic was the first stone structure in the city. Britain, Yew, Trinsic, and Paws agreed to form a united kingdom, Britannia, for their common defense, and settlers from each city cooperated to colonize the new city of Skara Brae.
Skara Brae in its early years was troubled by rampant disease, until the invention of the famous Skara Braen soap. The numerous cats, which still populate the island to this day, were imported to keep it free of plague-carrying rats.
When the fragmented West Montorians were finally reunited under the warlord Jhel, they petitioned to join Britannia as Jhelom.
Their skills in war made them sought after as mercenaries, and made imports from the mainland more readily available to the island, itself poor in natural resources.
Vesper and Magincia viewed the Western cities' unification with suspicion. They took counsel with one another and with Moon so as not to fall under the hegemony of Britannia's influence. Into this situation entered a new Britannian town on the doorstep of Vesper: Minoc. Vesper and Magincia protested the encroachment, but knew they had little military might. Relations remained tense, until Magincia faced a wholly unexpected crisis: the pirates of Buccanneer's Den became so emboldened as to begin raiding Magincia itself.
At this juncture, the paladins of Trinsic intervened voluntarily and repelled the threat. Forced to recognize the value of the defense of a kingdom, Magincia was sufficiently humbled to negotiate membership in Britannia, though it retained an independent parliament to review and theoretically reject any royal decree affecting the island. Fearing isolation from its trading partners, Vesper shortly after followed suite.
With affairs calmed in the eastern seas, Jhelom established a new offshoot, New Jhelom. Its original settlers found life on this desert isle untenable and departed, but not before the residents of Buccanneer's Den adapted to a new form of piracy there: gambling.the Black Lich New Jhelom morphed into Nu'Jelm, an opulent vacation resort popular with wealthy Magincians.
Minoc also experienced changes, its mining operations greatly expanded by opening trade with Vesper. In the exuberance of their prosperity, some miners forgot that the world still held ancient dangers.
Searching for that rarest of minerals, blackrock, the miners opened the way to the buried lair of Khelereth the Black Lich. All manner of monsters then filled the miners' caverns, and since that day the lumberjacks of Minoc have been plagued by reapers. That dungeon has been called Covetous, because of the miners' disastrous greed.
Moon at that time was undergoing great internal turmoil. The magical techniques of the Liturgy of Truth had already been largely supplanted by a new system of magery, but then even the ideal of Truth itself became increasingly called into question. Few lives were lost in the struggle that followed, but the methods of the mages' war were so arcane that few of the dead were content to remain entombed in the graveyard. Up to that time, Moon had most closely aligned with Vesper and Magincia, but during the tensions between Britannia and the East, Moon found itself too absorbed in internecine conflict to weigh in on the situation.
Moon eventually emerged from its turmoil as Moonglow, newly rededicated to Honesty and Truth, and joined the Britannia. The dissenters in Moonglow departed voluntarily and formed a community in the abandoned ruins, thereafter called Deceit, on the snowy Dagger Isle.
While surveying his new kingdom, Lord British visited the former site of Montor. He explored it alone and found himself threatened by a mongbat.
Before the mongbat could make any aggressive move, a silver serpent struck out and killed it. In commemoration of this event, Lord British established there Serpent's Hold, as a place of training for soldiers to defend the kingdom.
Serpent’s Hold became the last of the three strongholds of the principles. The Lycaeum stood for the Ancient Liturgy of Truth since the days of Esidin; the Empath Abbey tempered Truth with Love in the feudal era; and finally, Serpent’s Hold symbolized the courage of the Britannian kingdom.
What befell next was a pivotal moment in the history of our land. A being of great power from beyond our worlds, the Time LordTime Lord, contacted Lord British and revealed the extraordinary nature of our world.
Before that moment, only the Followers of Armageddon had dreamed they were living inside a gem, but the Time Lord told Lord British the truth that our world was in fact within one of the Gem's shards. These shards are vulnerable to corruption by the beings called Shadowlords, and if allowed, the Shadowlords will turn the shards' power against the true Britannia. The solution to this vulnerability is to reunite the shards, which will be accomplished when each citizen of Britannia adopts the virtues for his or her own moral code. Unfortunately, the consequence of this unification is that any individual existing in the shards but not in the true world will cease to exist.
Lord British accepted the necessity of defending the realm from any threat and so began restoring the ancient shrines and dedicating them to the Virtues. To give every one of his subjects a clear and personal understanding of the Virtues, Lord British knew that he would need the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. This mythical book was said to contain the answer to any question the reader should ask.
To obtain Bell, Book, and Candle the Codex, Lord British summoned his most virtuous subjects: Geoffery the Fighter, Mariah the Mage, Iolo the Bard, Dupre the Paladin, Julia the Tinker, Jaana the Druid, Shamino the Ranger, and Katrina the Shepherd. Their quest led them through each of the dungeons of Britannia and finally to the Stygian Abyss, which can only be entered by one carrying the Book of Truth, the Candle of Love, and the Bell of Courage. In the depths of the abyss, however, the Codex could not be found. Since then, the book, bell, and candle have been kept in the three strongholds of the principles.
In opposition to the Virtues, Lord Blackthorn objected on the grounds that there are many possible moral codes, and each person should be free to select the values that seem most right. Furthermore, the lives that would be lost in unification have value that must be taken into account. He therefore established his own shrine, dedicated to Chaos.
(Cont. in Part 3)