REGARDING ANTIQUITIES: to Mr. Lorincreve, 525 Clinking of Coins [DM]

[caesaropapist]

    ^{To the Esteemed Mr. Lorincreve,}

We had spoken some time ago, in the savage & untoward Satrapy of Ephia's Well; while I was confined to the indignity and offense of stocks, for so much as finding fascination in the strange works of our forebears. Not so long after, you joined me in the coffeeshop; and I introduced myself as Arymathras al-Almadel.

Your words, and your proposition, have long since been on the back of my mind: and in return, we have set myself to gathering some resources and men for the purpose of establishing myself more thoroughly in the trade of antiquities. I would like to become a partner of your establishment, shipping relics of Orentid & Caliphal Origin, in exchange for a triangle trade of equipment & funds that will support our future endeavors, ...

The evening I pen this will mark the first time that the Society has broken ground in Ephia's Well, uncovering a relic of some import; from the tomb of a Caliph, filled with the most elegant of murals & paintings my eyes had feasted; and there I found the statue of the Caliph adorned in Gold and gripping the White Spear.


And to begin this, I would like to send you a gift of what it is I have recovered.
An artifact from the era of the Pretender Caliphs -- a gold-enlaid, gem crusted sash, and a fractured Erugitic tablet, that would no doubt appease any rich & fat Ashfolk seeking a new trophy on their mantlepiece.

^{MAY THE LAMP NEVER DIM,
ARYMATHRAS AL-ALMADEL}

              _{PS: My interests remain with the occult & esoteric -- and anything you might provide that would lead me towards Idrisian texts upon the topic, or the tools to translate them, would be of utmost interest.}

[caesaropapist]

CC. MR. LORINCREVE,
    I take it you've been busy, or are disinterested.
    Instead of gifts, I offer you my first work. Enjoy.

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      SHADOW SISTER WELL

FOREWORD: I owe this discovery to Zalthar & Karstcleft, for their assistance, funding, and sublime charity; I owe this discovery to Nesilhan bint-Zuthal, for her last minute assistance and confidence in my work; and lastly to the League of Gold, who were kind enough to patronize a man from another League for his hard work.

Sweeping vistas & hand-wrought stone, chiselled in the icon of a man knelt before a hooded, ambiguous frame; the motif of a Well, and cradled in the heart of that Well, a Chalice and trophy like no other. We call this place "Iistu". In the old tongue, it meant one thing; "Place of Imprisonment." Yet in today's common parlance, we know it as another.

But what if I told you that there was another place like this? Where a Man once saw visions of a gleaming chalice, and was joined by seven hooded disciples who spread the gospel of a Prophet in how the world could be remade? This place is not Ephia's Well, but it is Iistu. We know that Iistu is Prison. That Iistu is that which contains in the Old Tongue.

And beneath us, Ephia's Well once contained it's grim secret, too.
Welcome to Shadow Sister Well.

"The firstborn of a seventh son. He was the one who saw the Truth,
He was the one who showed us the way, and the first of seven disciples."

This man was Mordecai, and they tell us he was the favored of God in the singular. Not of our Wheel, nor the Sages, but of one cause, and one Lord in the isle of Harrowden. Then I ask the educated among us a question: this man, who is guided by religious visions, and righteous fervor - surrounded by apostles and itinerants who drove him to seek a Chalice... Does it remind you of anyone? Does it make you think of the state of our Well?

What if you were to learn that this Ephia's Well, this Iistu, buried in the broken sphere of the world, burnt to cinders by the Heliograph, had the ruins of Fomorian and Collosi art? What if I told you that like in Ephia's Well, there was a seal for something buried deep within it? Then I would ask you; what is the commonality between us, and them? What if I told you that it had whispered in the ears of men, the way the Well had to the babe [REDACTED] and Enrico?

This poses us with a potent question that calls into matter the very existence of Ephia's Well, the Cinquefoil Rose, and the truth of what is beneath us. For too, our records say He Who Shall Not Be Named was guided by Voices to the Old Words: given visions and power, which one drained our Well dry and severed B'aara's love for thousand-and-some-years. For too, our records say Enrico the Pretender was guided by the Voices to the Old Words: given visions and power, once with forever changed the course of history and led to the Ephia's Well we know today.

Do the statues of the Pilgrim and Chalice predate us? Do they stretch back to the days of the Collosi?
Have they been brought to "Iistu" as a message? A sign of triumph over evil? Or did someone, later, bring these statues here, and stoke the legend of one bringing The Chalice to the site of an ancient and terrible evil?

By the assessment of the author, ARAMATHRYS Al-ALMADEL, there are two prevailing theories:

• EPHIA'S WELL is one of a number of PRISONS scattered across the Ash Waste, having been designed by the Collosi to restrain an entity beyond our comprehension and understanding, and that the statues of the Pilgrim, Kneeling Giant, and Chalice were some form of LONG TERM COLLOSI DANGER WARNING that "This is a Place of Honor, Do Not Disturb": and that the Cinquefoil Rose and the Sisterhood are predicated on the memory of this thing, to renew the bindings and use the White Spear to remake the Well with it's shackled power,

OR,

• That this is not the SISTERHOOD's first Cinquefoil Rose: that they have seeded the Myth of the Chalice at the sites of these Prisons, and raised religious men to act as their caretakers and stewards on multiple occasions since their emergence in the Caliphate (yet undated), and that they are aware of the existence of the entities which have perverted Enrico the Pretender, He Who Shall Not Be Named, and perhaps even the Collosi themselves, and have armed specimens such as "PROPHER MORDECAI", and "THE GRANDMASTER" with their charge, ...

Leaving the rest of the world with a burning question.
What Happened in Harrowden - What Happened to the Fomorians?

This will be discussed in my upcoming sequel

[close]

[Secutor]

Enterprising Arymathras al-Almadel, who walks walks in the light-well-cast,

I confess, your treatise was oblique to me, but some of my cohort found it quite amusing. Thank you, as it is always my desire to entertain and be interesting to clients and colleagues.

On the contrary, I am never disinterested from wondrous findings. But, I will make it clear that I only traffic in the most estimable products of craft or of old, and not potsherds and charcoal rubbings.

Should you discover rumor or substance related to a certain "Latch" or "Latchkey", my interest and services will be ready.

Do keep me apprised, as your contact in Baz'eel.

LORINCREVE, BROKERS and APPRAISAL