32. November 19, 2016

November 19, 2016

Traveling to the Academic Section of the Imperial Capital's Delta

We travel to the academic section to do research. Topics to research: Has anyone been researching dragons and ancient monsters? Any archeological digs underway in the delta? Entrances to secret catacombs, or underwater caves where there are artifacts from aquatic water creatures age? Ancient history on the rise of man and submission of aquatic monstrous races? New scholarship, active scholars on these topics to whom we can speak to learn the latest research and thoughts?

Jessa chats with a family on the road, who say there's a nice trail thru the woods called the “rim walk” that is popular for cultural tourism in that the various duchies are represented along the trail, manned by personnel who speak the accent and know the culture. In the academic district, there are libraries and museums organized by content.

Digging into Things – Archeological Finds about Early Settlements

There are some current archeological digs, the oldest early human civ remains are in the Imperial province; humans came from the east, up the river, and spread in what's now the imperial city. Humans settled around the coasts around the lake, then went inland later; the speculation is that early humans were seafaring people and were more comfortable near water. Every duchy has ongoing digs, though Kirenweld's dig to find ancient dwarven stuff was shut down earlier this year from an earthquake (yes, the one we caused). The current capital district is the 8^th one on that spot, they've found evidence of 7 earlier cities there. The ruins on the islands show evidence of some cataclysm in the Heart. They think around the time the 2^nd capital district was in existence, based on evidence from sediment on damaged sections; whatever the cataclysm was, they think it's when people started moving inland.

Ley Lines, the Nexus of Ancient Magic and Today: Ray Theory, Fluid Theory, Magnetism Theory

Outside of the imperial nobility, few people know magic exists, it's a folk tale elsewhere. But imperial people know it's real. One library maps ley lines, channels of magic energy; the “Fringe Library” has mapped two big ley lines, they flow like rivers (not straight). Pre Inner-Sea Cataclysm, the capital for RYNN was on the nexus of ley lines. Since the Event, the hub of ley lines has shifted into the Heart itself in the sea; people speculate there was a tectonic event that shifted the focus of magic, or speculate that there was a magical reason for the shift. Scholars note that the ancient dwarven cities are along fluid ley lines. Proponents of “ray theory” of ley lines says magic is light, it radiates. Proponents of “fluid theory” think ley lines are like water, and lines move with the magic landscape rather than the physical boundaries on a magical plane. They think they can get a topographic map of the magic plane that our physical plane sits on. The minority Ray Theory supporters show light bending through a prism, they say rays aren't completely straight. The commonality is the knowledge that the ley lines bend, even though people disagree about the reason for the bending.

Bel speculates about what happens when you have people, like 24 sisters for example, who attract odd magical attention. Or dwarves whose habitations are along ley lines; their mining (or refinement/production) of materials might attract and be drawing the magic through their cities. (If Kaerg wasn't consolidating his empire and building Sirtegaard, he could provide information on that topic.) Based on things she's observed from personal experience, Bel thinks that particular people, artifacts, or activities might attract magical attention like magnets draw iron filings to them. Ley lines might meet where enough of the attractants are congregated, and Bel theorizes it is possible to change the position of a node of ley lines by moving a mass of attractants.

History and Speculation

Other theorists think the early human settlers were chasing their deity, who might have moved to here, and the humans settled where their deity was. (Maybe the goddess of still waters.) Then the cataclysm happened. Things were idyllic, then they weren't. The speculation is that maybe there was a conflict between deities, and the human's original deity lost the fight, and that's maybe why humans dispersed over land. They've found remains of magical beasts only around the imperial area. Scholars say that dwarven settlements in Valkir were built later than those in Imperial area and main continent. Sometime around the 4^th imperial city is when the Whirlpool appeared. The dwarves started building in Valkir during the 3^rd; during the 4^th the vortex appeared. The scholars say that the dwarves were in Valkir first, and Ray Theorists think that the magical beasts in the mountains of Valkir appeared after the dwarves were there and bending materials that led to magic beasts appearing. The Fluid Theorists agree on the timeline, but not the reasons. Scholars think that human tribes in the 4^th and 5^th age started to fracture...possibly because western civ was influenced differently than eastern civ people.

Odette is Missing

We learn from a report from Genard that Odette (the mentor of Faile, i.e., Jessa's “grand-mentor”) has vanished without a trace. She was last in the Capital District of the delta. Odette was who reported there were catacombs... Discreet inquiries have not turned up anything.

The Ray Theorists' Secret Room and Experiments

Bel casts “detect secret door” and “detect magic” over the week, in every library we're in. In the Fringe Library, there are two doors, one near the offices of the Ray Theorists, and one near the offices of the Fluid Theorists. We investigate the Ray's secret room—Detect Secret Doors showed us where the door was; there were lots of stylized suns in woodwork and one that didn't match, it was a prism. We pressed the prism and the door slid open. It's a work room, lots of highlighting and bookmarks in them; on the table is a dwarven-manufactured chest, which when opened, the Gem of Brightness dims.

A Second-Age Artifact that Annuls Magic

When the chest is shut, gem returns to normal brightness. The chest is clearly lead-lined. Looking through a prism (the spell focus for Locate Object) and the Gem of Brightness, Bel observes that for a split second before the gem's light dims, she thinks she sees a crystal inside the box. Jessa finds a note in a book, that says “with the help of the dwarf, we found this artifact [in the chest] that's from a 2^nd Age dig. It annuls magic. More research is needed. But it may prove Ray Theory.” (Ray theory suggests the struggle that caused the nodes to shift was caused by a struggle between gods. Fluid theory thinks magic lines moved from natural, tectonic events. [Perhaps Bel's observations are more aligned with Ray theory.])

Jessa finds books with private notes, which wonder privately why there aren't temples if the people were following a god, they wonder if the people were following the magical phenomenon, which may or may not have been a deity, due to addiction to magic, or for protection, or something.

The Fluid Theorists' Secret Room

On another day during an opportune time, we go into the Fluid room (where we observed air currents and pressed on points on the wall where the flow seemed different). The room is neat. No books, just tables with inkwells, very clean. Room is circular, with tables around the room and chairs behind so seated people look at center of room, which is a basin full of water. In the water is a shield-sized scale (like a giant fish scale) that's floating over the water, but it's not resting on the water itself. The scale moves when poked but it never touches the liquid. The water itself Detects as magical. It smells briny, but more like ocean water than the inner sea water. [As comparison, holy water Detects as holy/good, but is not magic. So this water is something different.] The magic water does not detect as any alignment. The scale starts drifting slowly toward Bel as she concentrates with the detection cantrips, stops when it bumps the lip. We stop the spell. Bell pulls out the Gem of Brightness, lights it, walks slowly around the basin; the scale follows. So it reacts to summoned/applied magical energies. Interesting.