Dark Warnings from a Silvery Seer
(Crossing, Zoluren: 141 Shorka 351)
Just the other day I had a chance encounter with a strange young girl I had never before seen nor heard of. What she shared with me, I fear, holds dark warning for all the Realms. As a dutiful citizen of Zoluren, I report her sayings here.
I was walking to Grisonda’s in the wee hours before dawn when I chanced upon a fair young girl with the wild in her eyes. I asked a nearby urchin if he’d ever seen her before, who replied that the girl’s name was Nyxx O’Selkie. Her long, dappled silver hair was dishevelled, tumbling over wrinkled and tattered silver robes. She was quite a sight, and in compassion I looked toward her to offer my assistance, and asked what a frail young thing like her was doing out so early in the morn.
As I looked toward poor Nyxx, her eyes snapped up and locked on mine as if she felt my gaze, and it stung her. There was a a strange, swirling power within those eyes, and she moved as though she was led by voices most other folk cannot hear. She raised her finger to point at me, shuddered, and spoke to me in a distant, hollow voice, "Kador Thariand, thy soul to see so I, dark clouds so trouble thy distant sky! What dwells within, my mirror to show, if courage thou hast in strength to know…"
She spoke with such urgency and strangeness I could not help but nod to her in consent. She then raised to my eyes a tarnished silver mirror flecked with dark swirls, and I looked upon its surface. What I saw within that mirror crafted of the forms of leering dragons I cannot say, only that wispy mists moved within it, drawing me into their weird depths. As I gazed within as if to lose myself, the silvery seer drew the mirror back and focused on it, dropping into some form of trance. She then spoke in a low, haunted tone, and I stood transfixed upon her words.
"Kador, the mists rise for thee to swirl within, visions bring so bright, so grim. A starry man stands bold and sure in chariot pulled by sphinxes pure. Steadfast, courage fills his mein, strong staff held for all to see. Mists swirl, shading all… another vision answers call…
"Grimly, strong, sits king upon a throne, vines of red grapes weaved within his gown. Strong bulls surround him, though he looks upon them not. Gaze turned, instead, to starry orb of golden wrought. Fading fast, mists swirl past…"
At this time, the seer began to shudder and a dark pain fell across her face. She looked as though she would not continue, but continue she did, willingly or no. Her voice darkened lower, with urgency and… fear?
"Crops fall crushed, king lies dead with careless, blasphemous trampled head. Children kneel in supplication, crying Spare Me from desecration with gold-robed priest calling Spare Us For the Gods… but such shall save them not from spiked rods. All eyes turn to stomping, ivory steed bearing figure black with final deed. Dark metal of unknown wrought holds skeletal form whose life’s death sought. Final ending to all so known, final ending is all for it to own.
"Black flag with blacker rose flaps upon the wind, black flag with blacker rose, its judgement none can e’er rescind…."
With this she gasped and collapsed. While I did feel some fear as to what these visions could portend for me or all the Realms, I possessed more concern for she who endured so much to bring them to me. I tried to help her again to her feet, but she waved my hand away. She said she was well enough, she merely needed time to gather her thoughts to try and offer meanings to what she had seen.
After a short while, she touched my hand and spoke of the visions she saw. The first she called the sign of the chariot, and said it portends of war and vengeance, and the things which bring those evils to be. Whether these were within me now or in the future of myself or those around me, she could not, or would not say. I pray to all the gods for none of the above.
The second sign she called the gilded king, and advised that it called for great valor and courage in face of things to come. Intelligence and strength alone would lead us to conquer what lies ahead, weakness and vice bring none but corruption and peril. I nodded in agreement, and urged her to continue on to explain the last, the most disturbing "sign". She cringed at my words, and insisted that this final sign she will not tell. A tear fell from her eye in pain and fear as she urged me to take it only as a sign of mortality and its final end, as a warning of things which might yet be for myself and all the realms. I tried to pursuade her to give more insight into this frightening scene, but she yet refused, saying it was "too much, too much, such things refuse I to bring. If cost there be, let the price fall to me."
She then said she was weary and must go rest, leaving me with a final urging to remember the second sign and the courage it calls for, for such courage and clear-headedness should we all require in the dark and troubled days to come. Refusing further assistance, she disappeared into the wakening dawn, leaving me stranded with these dark and disturbing thoughts.
I asked around in effort to find anyone who knows of strange Nyxx and her dark mirror, and found that she had given predictions from her mirror to those gathered in the Southeast corner of the Town Green, promising to return one week hence at what I gathered should be midnight by the Eastern Shore, on the third day of the week. I intend to seek her then, and press her for more information on the vision she had of dark things threatening our fair Realms. If I can press them from her, I will report them here. With rumors of Teiro and Lanival returning to have it out again, and the mirror wraiths and returning liches and Councilmembers of the Moon Mage guild… I believe we can use all the help we can get in preparing for what lies in wait for all of us.