( he inclines his head toward the older man, and so begins. )
Ellethia's institute succeeding in bringing the dead back to life. Horribly so. This, after Matthias's daughter died... if you remember that.
After Ellethia fell, the institute was all that stood. In the citadels around, armies of the once more mobile dead were lead to conquer and conquest. Unhalad was the first we met, in Sa-Hareth. The older leader of the dead there, Anurr, was displaced by Unhalad and his forces at that time, where Unhalad, youngest of the group called the Brotherhood, was also youngest to his... chokehold on his citadel.
We destroyed him. Anurr... we did not.
( he waves this off. )
There are mirrors which carry curses and compulsions, which by now I suspect started in Ellethia, but as I'm not of your world or that time in this world, I don't know. They've appeared in near every citadel or village we've stopped in, and you were attempting to placate dead mermaids with the shards of a great one, which you wouldn't let people reconstruct as whole. That you may remember eventually, or you may not. All I know is that to spirits, your institue, the lighthouse it became... ( a glance to one of the illustrations in charcoal, and a tip of his head toward it ) ... was as wrong in the magics that held it captive as the lands of Ellethia around it were wrong in the magics that cursed them.
After Sa-Hareth, and a journey through the Stair of Sighs, we encountered two more of the Brotherhood in Taravast. We learned what deals they'd been making with the Brotherhood in order to remain unconquered. Every other citadel that the man whose contact you might make through that cheap crystal had visited has been overtaken, or deeply harmed, some less obviously than others. He suspected Serthica may have fallen. It's why we're here.
But I digress... Taravast brought us the Beastmaster and the Huntress, whom he chased. She brought pestilence and rot in her wake, and he, control of horrible creatures, dead and touched by death. We learned later, in Ke-Waihu, that the Beastmaster was a man of those lands when he'd been alive, and the Huntress his wife when she lived. Their divide came during their living, when she sacrificed their son to the volcano of that island, and he was understandably not reconciled to the action. The Beastmaster was slain, during our time there. Right after we assisted in the prevention of the volcano's explosion. The Huntress remains at large.
( Giving them credit where he can: it's not. Kind, what happened, or what the effects were, but it did prevent the imminent explosion. )
Our Merchant does not wish those of us summoned by the Brotherhood to this world to be fuel and remade in parts for their armies of dead to have us. Some of the dead... some speak, as easily as we do. Others are creatures to be ordered, the spark of what lives inside them not a match to the form they take. Yet others are as if wraiths.
Your world has fallen in large parts to the dead, who do not remain dead. When I speak of undeath and the undead, it's the name some have given them. When I speak to you, it's as a strange pulled into this battle and herded by a Merchant who hopes we burn as many related to the Brotherhood, directly or not, in the process of shepherding us away from their grasp. He names you friend, Zenobius. If he's liberal in his wording, or if it's a truth you'd agree with, I cannot say.
now you get to see how much or accurately i remember
Ellethia's institute succeeding in bringing the dead back to life. Horribly so. This, after Matthias's daughter died... if you remember that.
After Ellethia fell, the institute was all that stood. In the citadels around, armies of the once more mobile dead were lead to conquer and conquest. Unhalad was the first we met, in Sa-Hareth. The older leader of the dead there, Anurr, was displaced by Unhalad and his forces at that time, where Unhalad, youngest of the group called the Brotherhood, was also youngest to his... chokehold on his citadel.
We destroyed him. Anurr... we did not.
( he waves this off. )
There are mirrors which carry curses and compulsions, which by now I suspect started in Ellethia, but as I'm not of your world or that time in this world, I don't know. They've appeared in near every citadel or village we've stopped in, and you were attempting to placate dead mermaids with the shards of a great one, which you wouldn't let people reconstruct as whole. That you may remember eventually, or you may not. All I know is that to spirits, your institue, the lighthouse it became... ( a glance to one of the illustrations in charcoal, and a tip of his head toward it ) ... was as wrong in the magics that held it captive as the lands of Ellethia around it were wrong in the magics that cursed them.
After Sa-Hareth, and a journey through the Stair of Sighs, we encountered two more of the Brotherhood in Taravast. We learned what deals they'd been making with the Brotherhood in order to remain unconquered. Every other citadel that the man whose contact you might make through that cheap crystal had visited has been overtaken, or deeply harmed, some less obviously than others. He suspected Serthica may have fallen. It's why we're here.
But I digress... Taravast brought us the Beastmaster and the Huntress, whom he chased. She brought pestilence and rot in her wake, and he, control of horrible creatures, dead and touched by death. We learned later, in Ke-Waihu, that the Beastmaster was a man of those lands when he'd been alive, and the Huntress his wife when she lived. Their divide came during their living, when she sacrificed their son to the volcano of that island, and he was understandably not reconciled to the action. The Beastmaster was slain, during our time there. Right after we assisted in the prevention of the volcano's explosion. The Huntress remains at large.
( Giving them credit where he can: it's not. Kind, what happened, or what the effects were, but it did prevent the imminent explosion. )
Our Merchant does not wish those of us summoned by the Brotherhood to this world to be fuel and remade in parts for their armies of dead to have us. Some of the dead... some speak, as easily as we do. Others are creatures to be ordered, the spark of what lives inside them not a match to the form they take. Yet others are as if wraiths.
Your world has fallen in large parts to the dead, who do not remain dead. When I speak of undeath and the undead, it's the name some have given them. When I speak to you, it's as a strange pulled into this battle and herded by a Merchant who hopes we burn as many related to the Brotherhood, directly or not, in the process of shepherding us away from their grasp. He names you friend, Zenobius. If he's liberal in his wording, or if it's a truth you'd agree with, I cannot say.
( a pause. )
More water?
( at least it's not more dark water— )