I come asking for forgiveness, having also been shuned by the people at large, so I will start by being egoistic and end with my plea so that my discourse can be ethical and unscathed.
I see you are trying to get the loremaster to speak again. Let my ego echo along those halls for just a moment, since after all I am but another companion : keeper of the gates of the garden of virtue ! I also conjure on some of the other companions and great members of this community for heartfelt contribution to this delicate question. One by one, you will eventually realise the depth to which this goes, may this explain my earthbound integrity and the vehemence with which I defend it.
I am going to be quite blunt. Your heart is young, I like you, and truth must be told to the young at heart that seek ; as I was allowed to get a glimpse of Nystul's works I carefully utter the infinite.
Nystul was a much greater mage than lord British ever hoped to be, he was a bit of everything, his words and his pace had a way of reaching deep like no other man, he was versed in language, lore, philosophy ; name it and it would become his own self-challenge the wisps used to say. This is the moment when speaking of me isn't necessary since I only witnessed the moment, only I was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right moments to get a glimpse of what the importance of the time was, and there is not much left, time that is ! I am thus extreemly honored to be allowed to infuse some of my past creativity into this colorful weave that is you atlantic players.
Nystul first appeared in Ultima VI, where his vision saved the Avatar from being sacrificed. He helped the Avatar with the Book of Prophecies by directing the hero to Mariah, and helped with the Orb of the Moons by directing the hero to Lord British. Nystul was also present when Lord British and Lord Draxinusom met for the first time at the Shrine of the Codex.
200 years later, at the time of Ultima VII, Nystul was also a victim of the disturbed Ether, having become clumsy and quite senile (Spark even thought at first he was the jester). Thankfully, with the destruction of the Guardian's generator, his sanity was restored, and he helped the Avatar by selling him spells and reagents. After the destruction of the Black Gate, he invested a lot of work into restoring the teaching of magic to Britannia.
Nystul was essential for the plot of Ultima Underworld II. He researched methods of breaking the Blackrock Dome, and gave the Avatar much good advice, offering training in the mystical arts as well. Also, he treated the small Blackrock Gems for the Avatar, and later decyphered the Spellbook of Mors Gotha. Together with the Avatar, he managed to free the castle from the Guardian's grip. He cast the important spell from the Spellbook, while the Avatar used the Horn of Praecor Loth to deal the finishing blow to the dome.
He was also one that not only spoke with the wisps but understood their complex tongue in his own way. He also was able to give them a basic understanding of humankind before his departure, which is a very important event in britannia's history.
I quote :
Each shard, being a broken piece of the Gem of Immortality, contains multiple facets, or faces. When the Wizard Mondain was slain, his apprentice, the Enchantress Minax, escaped the Avatar by using a powerful spell that transported her to a different facet of the same shard. From here she planned her revenge, seeking a way to travel back to the original facet from whence she escaped and destroy both Lord British and the Avatar.
This forced Lord British to use all his available resources and powers to move his people and loyal followers to a new facet of the shard, where the Virtues block Minax herself from attacking him directly. Unfortunately, evil still lurks in Lord British's new home, but because the Virtues hold sway over the new lands, players have found themselves unable to be harmed by Minax's minions, or to harm each other by direct or indirect means.
We, taking the wisp words now, are certain you are already taking perspective Avatar, what is at stake here, we are not only talking about the faith of Sosaria anymore, but of the entire universe, who, ruled out by the guardian within this galaxy cannot interfer or plagiarise our destiny.
Time is too short for us to be taking latitudes and longitudes with the divisive power of cohersion this entails in your world which is of very little importance to us. The way is narrow and also many will fall prey to the guardian's myriads of temptations and anguishes ; we shall not take humankind on our shoulders this has to be walked with coherence and preponderance, human understanding.
Do not forget about Exodus and its time travelling ! We learned lessons, we need to use the lessons to progress or we will stall !
The wisps are very uneasy right now, forgive them for the tone.
Quoting again :
In each facet, Exodus was projected to a different point in time, and that is the time when history begins to diverge from that of the true world that contains the Gem. For the facet of Ilshenar, that point in time is in the distant past, during the reign of the Juka and Meer. Exodus continued there to attempt to fulfill its purpose, which was to control the world. The Juka took Exodus as a leader and under his guidance began a new offensive against the Meer, more devastating than anything ever conducted in the original timeline. The Meer in turn escalated their attacks to the point that the existence of both races was threatened. To escape destruction, Exodus again traveled through time. The Meer put themselves in hibernation to follow. Zog either was never born, or never had the chance to gain the Armageddon spell, and life continued.
This is very important to note.
A timeline cannot be constructed, but it seems that the dark wisps revealed a new interpretation of the significance of Mondain's non-existence in Ilshenar. Whereas to the scholars of Terort Skitas, Mondain's failure to appear was the undoing of their plans, the Zog Cabal believed that Mondain's non-existence was necessary for maintaining some inscrutable "balance." Based on this, the scholars accepted the dark wisps' urging to summon... something. There is no surviving record of what they summoned, nor a better explanation of why. In the records available from Terort Skitas, this being is called only "bal-lem," meaning "evil one." Apparently, the other humans achieved a limited victory and imprisoned this being. Four leaders of the Zog Cabal, whose names were Martoo Saul, Junin Pince, Zendella Kxriss, and Miron Vehl, were banished to another facet as punishment for their involvement. However, for some unknown reason, the people of Terort Skitas and Mistas felt that there was still great evil at work in Ilshenar. They evacuated their people and sealed the facet gates, to protect the other facets from whatever evil lingered in Ilshenar..
Beren, Berem... I have been called many names, I have lived many times and know ; ironic would you say ?
Is it supposed to be symbolic having an eternal human made immortal ? Anyhow it seems that now that I speak of it, we think back. I can easily understand why the summoned evil entered me so easily, there was this holographic gap where my hand is ; I never felt it coming and once again did things I deeply regret.
I put my self importance aside in this matter, because one way or the other it will all be the same for me, I have lost count of lives, I am blended in the view. But would you rather have a truthful world or a bland, dull, faded out excuse for a home ? You can thank me later Avatar because time is short, every one of you has a special part to play and this fate is not something that goes unnoticed ; I have been asked to be impartial and... knowing the qualities and distortions of mankind by heart in a very ludicrously mundane way, I will be of service at the end of time to weight your intents and see if you are worthy of entering the garden of virtue which I don't even have any idea about yet.
Yes I am young, not fully a matured man yet, and I do not know everything but I know this one thing, you are not strange to play your role for something that is worth it, something that lives within us and will not surrender. Time swings by and far by now and the exposition of unified tought is acceptable and ethical. My hope is that noone will fear and go forward to discover the danger that is at stake, those that consider themselves evil will have to join in with those that deem themselves good to succeed in this endeavor.
What befell next was a pivotal moment in the history of our land. A being of great power from beyond our worlds, the Time 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.
The time lord never tells a truth that dosen't benefit him, mark his pseudo-daemoniac influence and do not forget his bar-gains.
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.
That was me, before my transformation or fusion call it what you will, I was taken into the cabal as a very young kid, but I did not know...
Since the community already bestowed me forgiveness on these matters despite my erratic and sometimes beligerent attitude, I shall pursue and persevere.
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.
Mondain cast one last spell when I accidently shattered the gem, it was set the proper ground to give life to this evil which has escaped me the day I was robed as a companion.
My brief exposure to its dynamics has almost destroyed me and I am most likely one of the most mentally stable people there can be, I am a nerd and a meek geek.
Mondain's child is now out there, and yes, sorry, I told him about about endocronological biodynamic equations when he looked in my eyes, threatning my family I weakly gave him this multi-dimentional knowledge but was able to hide him a part, thus woman will be free of the influence from this evil ; which is good news since they have such a broader and more vast array of intelligences than us men ; and that the current goal being ethical...
To be honest, in all impunity I once again ask for the forgiveness of the community because I hid this horrible truth, being ashamed of myself in a non-excusable way.
I was once so evil, and I lied almost as a reflex... but today I repent which allows me to write this letter to you.
Hope, for the times, they are a'changin.
P.S. : Thanks to Sirideain for his awesome website.
