Shattered Visions II - Living World of Verum

# Shattered Visions: Requiem _Special Thanks to [[Books]] and [[Reevee]] for transcribing this from [The Dark Sermon: Requiem (Season 3 Episode 3-4)](Corvanis/Parties/Completed%20Campaigns/The%20Dark%20Sermon/The%20Dark%20Sermon.md)_ Characters: [Ginny Lanternbridge](Ginny%20Lanternbridge.md), [Thorne Saltspire](Thorne%20Saltspire.md), [Gideon Tarrow](Gideon%20Tarrow.md), [Telry Lanternbridge](Telry%20Lanternbridge.md) >[!info|no-i clean]- ### Ginny reads Telry's Letter to Thorne > >>"Dear Ginny, >> >>I am writing you from my long trip in the east. I am healthy and well… > >>Hold… Thorne, instead of hearing what you hear spoken you hear this instead. >>"Dear Ginny… >> >>K̶̤̼̃̏ṉ̸͖̌̚o̷̮̠̼̐̇w̷͙̫̮̓̆̕l̷͓͉̈́̚̕e̶̳͊̆̓d̵̰̬͗͋̚g̵̺̈́́͊ě̸̱͛͌…̵̣̮̄͑̌ ̵̬̋͆t̸̹̙̘͌́ḩ̴̯̹͑̓r̶̙̤͇̀͝ẽ̸͍̤̾͒e̸͇̰̾̂ ̴͍̝̏͠q̷̙̒̕u̷̩͆̀e̶͇̍̿̀s̸̡̻̭͑͐́t̵̰͠i̸̧̛̯̣̇ȏ̵͕̐̓͜ͅn̸͇̂̿s̸̻̪̽̌…̵̡̿ ̸̹̻̗̃a̴̡͈̓͋s̸̨̮̋̋̅k̵̺̅e̶͈͛d̵͍͆̓…̴̞͎̋͋̾.̸̞̊͋ ̶̩̳͋̕͠F̵̦͎͐i̸͚̩̚x̶͎̳̲͝͠ ̸̼̔ẃ̶̄͜h̶͉̓̐ȃ̴͎ṱ̸̥̑̂͠ ̵̙̀w̷̛̺̓̆a̷̜̳͎̓s̷͓͍̻̈́̄ ̵̮͓̘̃b̶̦̺̆r̸͇̋̊̇o̴̤͕̜̿̄͛k̷͚̩͊̉̑e̴̯͖̓ͅn̸̦͚̈͗…̵͇̰̝̽͘.̷̨̛̗͛͆ ̵̯͇̽̽͠I̶̻͊t̴̠͋̂͜͠s̶͈͛̽͌ͅ ̵̧͒̓m̸̡̔̽è̸̘̩̿…̶͇̫͗͆ ̸̛̮͇̞͋͠t̸͉̋͆̋ḥ̴͑e̴̱̠͝ ̷̯͎͗̇̉ȩ̷̮̟͛̈̈́d̷͎̘͆͌̀ğ̴͔͈̍͜ȩ̷̝̝̋͛̕ ̴̛̪̒ó̴̰̭̥͌f̶̨̯͇͘ ̷̠̋t̸͙̣̯͝h̷̳̣̟̎̇ê̸̻̺͂̒ ̷̼͍̖̋k̶̮͇̃̈̕n̴͍͈̿̂i̵̳͈̾̎́f̸̛̘̜e̵̮͑͗ ̸̠̞̀t̴̨̢̽͠h̸̰̘̃ḁ̴͆̃͝t̵͕͉́́ ̶́̈̕͜f̵̘̆̐ì̸̮͝x̴̲͂͌̕ ̴̧͖̹͆̾t̸̑̕͜h̵̡͕̟̀͐́é̵͍̻͖͘ ̸̰̈́ḽ̸͍̾̈́̓e̷̬̿͜ý̷̬̔͝l̶̼͖̣͑̎͆í̸͓̜͌̚n̶͚̞͈̚e̷̢͌̏̕s̴̪̔͒ͅ ̷̢͆̽Ḯ̸̫̝̰…̸̱͗.̶̺͌͛̍ ̶̩͈̎̀͘ Stars fall…. And they will die…̸͖̟̃̕͜ >> >>_Knowledge… three questions… asked…. Fix what was broken…. Its me… the edge of the knife that... fix the leylines I…. Stars fall…. And they will die…_ </size> </size> > >>A deep pain begins to eminate within Thornes eyes. At the end of the letter Ginny, you notice that her appearance becomes pallid, pale a deep sweat dripping off her forehead. Gideon for a moment dejavu strikes you as you see Thorne look up and the nearly the exact same stance that she stood in only once before-when she was held by the might of Oloken’hai. Thorne cannot speak, cannot move. She collapses to the ground. The world will begin to fade away for Thorne. > >[!info|no-i clean]- ### Thorne Sees into the Past > >｡･:_:･ﾟ★,｡･:_:･ﾟ☆｡･:_:･ﾟ★,｡･:_:･ﾟ☆ > >>*Thorne you awaken… light will fill your eyes… colors and shapes. **You can see.** As you take a step out, you look down and you see a light, an energy flowing outwards before you. Your training telling you it's mana. More mana than you’ve ever seen in one place. Its beautiful to look at despite the fears that twinge at the edge of your mind from your training and your indoctrination, but beauty is a universal language, and this is like watching a piece of the sky asway with the dawn!* >> >>*There is something else as well. Within the light, shifting are shadows. Memories flowing, swirling around you. Then almost as soon as it had started, you feel your mind fade and twist and shift until you appear elsewhere.* > >>*Around you, you stand upon a precipice of night itself. Silver threads flow around you dip low and twist outward. As you begin to look around searching for some meaning an enemy perhaps to face, something somewhere… the ground begins to shift beneath your feet once more.* > >>*As you turn to flee, you find yourself stepping through ancient stones, murals of which cover your feet. A large pool of glistening golden like liquid to your side. As you kneel before it, it becomes obvious this liquid is blood but what blood is golden? The question flashes in your mind to find an answer. Trying to find some semblance of meaning of what is happening. But then light shifts around you once more.* > >>*You fall through the stone and into the darkness and you find yourself here. This place filled with the grandeur of Mytherias light, the symbols, the murals, the statues. It becomes clear that you are in a hallowed place. Perhaps the main cathedrals inner sanctum or perhaps… the mausoleum of the first Cathedral. You feel the same strange feeling that you have been feeling as you go through each of these different places, a strange sense of nostalgia. A whisper in the back of your mind. A rumbling of the slightest terror. You reach out toward the symbol of Mytheria and your pulled away.* > >>*You stand upon an ancient ship. The sound of spraying wind and salted air assaults you. Around you, you can see pieces of coral broken and shifting. Scouring the side of the vessel. As you call around for any that might hear you it shifts once more.* > >>*This time a heavy silence as you stand within the midst of forbidden magic. Apostasy of the highest order. The twisting stones appear all around you as there before you shifting… appears and disappears a familiar face. As you call out to Telry… it appears and shifts like a flickering shadow. Then finally manifests before you. That you which you call Telry looks at you but within it… you see that his continence has changed. Skin gnarled, blackened veins, cracks of power moving through his body. He looks at you with a hard expression. One not of an old friend but that of an enemy. **Telry smiles as a black helmet ungulates from the back of his neck covering his face. Telry will enter a stance of combat.** * >[!info|no-i clean]- ### Telry and Thorne meet again > > In the last of the visions, Thorne faces off against Telry in a place rife with heresy. Druidic sigils, and unpurified mana in the air. The person that stands before you looks like the Telry you know, save that they are bound in dark armor and forbidden sigils. Eyes etched into the fringes and edges of their armaments. As Telry stands before you, his weapon brandished, the intensity of his gaze marred by the shadow contours of a tentacled mass attached to his head with suckers and shadows themselves perhaps. As Thorne gazes on Telry, within this state of mind there is a whisper. A whisper that speaks not in words, but in meaning and truth. God of the Black Pantheon Oloken'hai, Lord of the Dark Truth, is heavy in the air. Within Telry it is like a bonfire burning with a shadowy light, and within Thorne but an ember. A last pleading remnant, but one that has attached to her all the same. Her magic and eyes were taken by Oloken'hai, but deep within her planted a truth. The visage of Telry walks towards her as her seers' sight sees within the concept of threes. One of whom Telry is, at least to her, and the other two of what he may yet become. Within each one of them twisting miasmas of fate, prediction, and madness encompasses the area. Weapons Clash, lines are drawn, and it begins. > >Telry begins to approach Thorne. Around him, the shadows of ignorance are parted, as the Dark Truth eminates. Telry moves to meet Thorne in the center of this strange circle of twisting stones and druidic writing. He will raise his spear and brings it down upon her. As he does so a single question: > >Telry: Who do you serve Thorne? Who? > >Thorne: The Church. > >(W: 15 to 29) Thorne's faith in who she serves rings out true as Telry's blade is turned. > >Telry: The church? What of Mytheria? > > Thorne: Mytheria is dead, but the church is guided in her light and it's through the church that we will find a brighter future. You may have betrayed the church, your friends, your family. But I'm not giving up on you. We are connected Telry. I'm here… I'm going to bring you back to the light. > > (L: 16 to 14) > >Telry: So little you know. Mytheria yet lives… Do you not see covered by false light and falser texts? Those that would call you your betters filled your minds with lies. Mytheria lives. Your light isn’t real! > >Thorne: What good is the truth if its just going to make you suffer. What if lies lead to something better? > > (W: 13 to 25) > >Telry: You would rather live happy and ignorant? > >Thorne: Yes! Happy with you. Your family. With our brothers and sisters in the light. > >Thorne: *Attempts to grab Telry to remove the mask.* > > (W: 27 to 22) > > Telry holds up his shield and knocks Thorne away. > >Telry: You would live in ignorance… you don’t know me at all. You never did. Happiness cannot be found in ignorance. Fear not though… I was lost like you too. My master will show you the truth. > >Thorne: Telry he’s hurting you… look at yourself! Your weary and gloomy and beleaguered. > > Telry flashes in and out of existence > >Come back to me! Telry! > > (W: 26 to 17) He reappears, behind him a shadow, massive, roiling, screaming. > >Telry: I am more than I ever was. More than I ever shall be! > >Thorne: *Attempts to grab Telry to pull him away from the tendrils* > > (L: 20 to 27) > >Telry: See even now instead of words and truth you attempt to stifle it with violence, and you call me lost? It is you who is lost. It is you who has blinded yourself. You may have lost your sight Thorne, but you have been blind far longer. > >Thorne: You’re my very best friend why would you do this? Why are you hurting people? Why? > > (L: 25 to 21) > >Telry: You dare to speak of harm of others? How many people have you sent to the Pyre? > >Thorne: Plenty! To carve a better future for both of us! For all of us. Magic can’t thrive in Corvanis. > > (W: 29 to 30 (Natural 20 for Thorne)) > >Arcadum: With that Telry will scream outwards griping at his mask, shifting in and out. Taking on a new form. This time you see all around him great thronging tentacles of shadows reaching out into the sky and above him a throng of falling stars and as he switches, his demeanor looks up toward them instead. He speaks with a soft voice. > >Telry: We were friends once many years ago. You will not interrupt me. You will not use your strength to overwhelm me because your wrong. We were friends. and you think now that you would your friendship upon me when it isn’t even you that is doing so. You don’t know me. Look above you, there are things that you do not even know exist. Things that the church, that you so served, does not even know exist. It is you that are lost. If you wish to know my friendship again… then you must step out of your false light. > > (L: 23 to 16) > >Thorne: Telry I know you’re a good person what are you trying to do? > >Telry: I am trying to tell the people the truth so that they may decide for themselves. Is that not the proper way? Freedom? You may be content with a noose around your neck no matter how much security it gives you. But I will not. My family will not. > >Thorne: They are worried about you Telry… they're worried about you. [Hilldagrim!](Hill%20Lanternbridge.md) [Tabbitha!](Tabby%20Lanternbridge) [Genevive!](Ginny%20Lanternbridge.md) [Telarius!](Proctor%20Lanternbridge.md) Your friends! Everyone in the Church cares about you Telry! > >Telry: I know. You think I do not? Things like this are dangerous, as is all change, but change, though it be dangerous, is not evil or misshapen. They worry because they do not know, but they shall soon, and their worry will be for not. They will see what real happiness looks like. One that isn’t told to you. One that is not informed to you but one that is produced by yourself. Desire is not something to be chained. To be traditioned. Chaos is taught to be evil, unpredictable, destructive but look… look beneath your very feet. Is Mytheria stay where the grass will grow or where the flowers bloom? No. Life does, and life is chaos in it purest form. People of the Pale City, they know only what is told to them. And for what? A security that is faltering. Security that has failed. Someone must wield the spear of truth and I have been chosen. > > (L: 27 to 11) > >Thorne: Telry how… are you sure that this will lead to a better end? That this will be a better future for people or are they just going to suffer? What point in there is being free if it closes off the paths to being with your family? > >Telry: The fact that you are so bound in the false light, that you do not see the simple truth… I will explain it to you. No… my path does not guarantee there will be no suffering. There is no such thing as a life without suffering. Death is in equal amount to life. Something that you do not know because you have been hidden from it. Death is the greatest guardian to life. One of the many truths shown to me by my new master and even then it is not bind me in chains. Simply gives me knowledge to do as I would. I go to the Pale City to throw those panoply of crown and marble to the ground. To tear down the very church-not that it represents of Mytheria-but the control that it is. Lead by corrupt people who seek to wield their power as they will. Then, when then mask has been torn away and the veil has been parted, people may choose as they wish. Perhaps they will choose a life that is less suffering, perhaps they won’t, but I would rather take the chance at a better life than one that has a guarantee of none. | > > (L: 31 to 23) > >Thorne: What do you mean a guarantee of none? Your family loves you Telry, you have friends. They care about you and want what’s better… we have seen the world outside of the Pale City its awful. Its ridden by muck and disease. At least if we all work together we can try to make things better. You can tell them and give them the choice. Why would you destroy the church when its helping so many? > >Telry: Because the church lies. The people can never know the truth as long as there is someone above them who lies. My master never lies. Only the truth is given and as to the world that you clearly know nothing of. It is sick but it is not sick because of apostasy nor the druids nor the common person it is sick because the leylines, the engine of life mana… has been turbulently and perpetuality cut off by those that believe that they know better. They make salves and cures for the disease they created! And under the guise of the great crusade and its greater evil. Against the very evil that Mytheria herself summoned. You’ll learn just like the rest of them. I know not how you came to be here nor how this vision is to be. Perhaps it is the will of my master that even you, even you, who are so blinded by faith and the panoply of gold and marble that surrounds you. Gilded cage it might be a but a cage it is. My master has shown fit to show you the truth to allow us to speak as he lingers in your mind. Even now he protects you from ignorance. Where is your light? Hm? Nowhere. > > (L: 19 to 17) (Third Loss) > >Thorne: Why if you better understand how the leylines work, why can’t you trust in the good of the people that you were raised with that, if you told them, that they would want to work together to make things better? We want to help Telry. > >Telry: If that is true than you will hold the gates open when I come to tear the wolves from the hen's den. If not, then, I will do what must be done. I am coming Thorne. My master is coming. > >Thorne: What are you doing Telry? > >Telry: You will see soon enough…. > > Telry No! - > > Thorne will shudder and shake awake. > >[!info|no-i clean]- ### Telry Returns Home >_Transcribed by Reevee from Dark Sermon: Sainted Six Ep 2_ > > >*Ginny sighs and looks up to meet the swirling eyes within Telry's mask.* > >"I will pray and endeavor that the end will be different. Family is everything, and seeing you like this hurts a great deal." > >"Do you have any tabs on Thorne Saltspire? Do you care?" > >*Telry will pause for a moment, and then will respond.* > >"I've seen her, through dream, through memory, but I know not of what has occurred to her. Her fate is unknown to me." > >"Do you care?" > >"What an inane question." > >"It is not" > >"What I care about is more complex and eldritch than I think your tiny mind could handle, sister. You ask me if I care about some girl I once knew. I barely have room in my mind for you and father."