I have discovered that adventurers do not require a formal meeting in order to say world-altering things. This seems dangerous.
Previously, I believed that important information would arrive with proper signals. A bell, perhaps. A herald. A dramatic lowering of the voice. Someone standing upon a chair and announcing, “Attend carefully, for I am about to explain a matter of historical significance!” This is not how adventurers work. Instead, they sit at picnic benches, eat snacks, wait for other adventures to finish happening elsewhere, and then, while appearing entirely casual, begin discussing powerful beings, wars, ancient forces, dangerous islands, shadow-stealing crocodiles, and frogs one must not look in the eye.
I was not prepared.
Later, while the day was full of waiting and motion, several of us gathered outdoors at picnic benches with snacks, questions, and no formal agenda whatsoever. This was when I first met Vaelien, who is called The Woodsman. He had the air of someone who knows many things, intends to say only some of them, and may already have decided which truths are allowed to walk around unattended.
Romulus was there as well, and between the two of them, I believe I witnessed a scholarly weather event. They did not simply answer questions. They released context.
I sat among them with my ledger open. This was wise. It was also insufficient. Vaelien and Romulus, in particular, began sharing information at a speed that suggested they had each been storing several libraries behind their teeth and had decided this was the moment to release them. I wrote as fast as I could. This is not a metaphor. My hand became a separate creature with its own panic.
There were crumbs on the table. There were people passing through. There were snacks. There were interruptions. Someone would sit down, contribute a sentence that belonged in a royal archive, then stand up again as if they had merely mentioned the weather. I began making headings, then subheadings, then desperate arrows between subheadings, then stars, then stars with circles around them, then one note that simply read: ASK WHAT THIS MEANS, which is not useful unless placed near the correct thing. I am not entirely certain it was.
Still, much was learned.
First: Archons. Archons are powerful beings with areas of interest. I wrote this down and then stared at it for a moment because “powerful beings with areas of interest” is the sort of phrase that walks into a page carrying twelve more questions behind it. How powerful? How specific are the interests? Do they choose the interest, or does the interest choose them? Can an Archon change interests? Is there paperwork? I did not receive all these answers because the conversation had already moved on. This happened often.
Second: the Lords of Chaos. I learned that the Lords of Chaos were previously Fae, but are now more than that. Each has different specialties, and one must be very careful making deals with them. I underlined very careful. Then I underlined deals. Then I wrote: DO NOT AGREE TO ANYTHING UNTIL TERMS ARE DEFINED. Then I wrote: ALSO DEFINE “TERMS.” This is how one survives complicated beings. Possibly.
There was also a warning about true names. A true name spoken from one’s own lips may give the Lords of Chaos, and possibly others, power over you. It is better to say, “You can call me…” rather than offer the full thing. This was immediately useful. It also made introductions much more complicated. You know I enjoy introductions. I enjoy names. I enjoy spelling names correctly. But apparently names are not merely labels. Some are doors. Some are handles. Some are ropes someone else may grab. This is a deeply inconvenient discovery for an archivist. I may need a new category: Names Which Must Be Treated Like Lit Candles.
Third: magic. I learned that Gorstang uses Wild Magic, which sounds exactly as safe as it probably is not. Vale uses Movement Magic and Pattern Magic, which I find beautiful as a pairing because movement is what happens, and pattern is how one understands what happened after it stops moving. I do not yet know whether this is accurate magical theory. It is, however, excellent ledger theory.
Fourth: relationships. Jingo is married to Vale, and they enjoy antagonizing each other. I wrote this down because it may explain future shouting, smiling, eye-rolling, or other married-person combat forms. Heffe works for Gorstang. He is Gorstang’s right-hand man, and apparently the only one who bothers to interact with him. This seems important. If only one person regularly interacts with someone, that person may be a bridge, a shield, a translator, a hostage, a friend, or all five depending on the angle of observation. More study is required.
Fifth: Ents. Ents are not merely tree people. This was another correction to my previous understanding. Ents are uber elementals, primary forces created near the dawn of time. There used to be hundreds. Now there are fewer than twelve.
Fewer than twelve!
When a category goes from hundreds to fewer than twelve, that is not trivia. That is a wound with a number attached. There are Earth Ents, Water Ents, Air Ents, and Fire Ents, and I have made a separate section for them because anything that began near the dawn of time deserves its own pages and possibly better handwriting.
Sixth: wars and deaths that made the world different. I learned of the God Slayer Wars, when Archons went to the realm of the Lords of Chaos and began killing them. This is not the sort of thing one expects to learn between bites of snacks. There are claims, denials, banishments, and consequences tangled through this history. I recorded what I could and placed several caution marks in the margin.
There were also stories of Beloc. Beloc killed Oceanis after Oceanis attacked a research academy for teaching mages. Beloc also killed Karina. When Karina died, the Shattering occurred, creating the Unbound. At this point, I stopped chewing. Some facts are too large to eat near. The Shattering. The Unbound. A death that becomes a world-event. I wrote the words carefully because they felt sharp.
Seventh: dangers of travel. If you are at the correct place in the correct region, do not look the black frog in the eye. It is a Hypno-Toad and will hypnotize you. This is perhaps the cleanest warning I received all afternoon. Do not look at the frog. I appreciate a warning with clear instructions.
There was also a warning about the Lost Isles. If your shadow is in the crocodile full of shadows, then the crocodile has control over you. Therefore, one should not let things in the Lost Isles touch you, to avoid losing your shadow. This warning is less clean. It raises many questions. How does a crocodile become full of shadows? How full is full? Can a crocodile be overfull? If one loses a shadow, does one notice immediately? Can a shadow be returned? Does the shadow want to return? I did not ask all these questions because my hand had begun to cramp and someone had just said something else alarming.
Eighth: The Brotherhood. The Brotherhood are outcasts who found a home with a dangerous figure I do not yet fully understand. The comparison offered was something like a dark and malicious Peter Pan with his lost boys. This is an extremely efficient description. I dislike it. I also admire it. A good comparison can place a whole dangerous shape into the mind at once. This one did so, and then I wished very much that it had not.
Ninth: places and trade and fortunes. Galzephad has a Merchant Guild where he makes and sells things, and makes people who sell things. I am still sorting that phrasing. He is also associated with casinos and brothels, which suggests that fortune, appetite, and commerce may sit at the same table more often than polite maps admit.
Tenth: dangerous family structures. There is someone named Yremmel who has twelve children, and they are apparently referred to as The Children. Each of them has their own powers, and many are connected to Fae courts. This immediately created several concerns. First, twelve is too many magically significant children to keep straight without a chart. Second, calling them The Children makes them sound less like children and more like a formal category of problem. Third, if many are connected to Fae courts, then this is not merely a family tree. It is a family tree growing through politics, magic, obligation, and probably several kinds of trouble.
I wrote these last items down with caution because some facts arrived too quickly for me to feel confident in their edges. They are in the Ledger, but not yet in my mind as finished shapes.
This is important. Not every recorded thing is understood. Some notes are seeds. Some notes are traps. Some notes are baskets one uses to carry confusion until it becomes knowledge.
By the time people began wandering away toward other tasks, conversations, and adventures, I looked down at myself and discovered that the conversation had not remained politely on the page. There was ink on my fingers, ink along the side of my hand, ink on one cuff, and one mark on my wrist that looked almost like a punctuation symbol, though I do not remember placing it there. There may also have been ink on my face, but no one said so directly, which means either there was not, or everyone was being kind, or everyone had become accustomed to adventurers wearing evidence of their own emergency scholarship. I choose to believe all three are possible.
I had learned more than I could neatly organize. This is very exciting. It is also terrible. The world is not a shelf of labeled jars. The world is a wagon full of labeled jars going downhill over rocks while several people shout additional labels from the roadside. I am doing my best.
Important conclusions from this sitting:
- Adventurers may share ancient world history while sitting outdoors eating snacks.
- Picnic benches are valid sites of scholarly emergency.
- Vaelien and Romulus contain dangerous quantities of context.
- Archons are powerful beings with areas of interest, which requires further classification.
- Lords of Chaos were previously Fae and are now more than that.
- Do not give powerful beings your true name from your own lips.
- Ents are ancient elemental forces and there are far too few left.
- “Do not look at the frog” is an excellent warning.
- “Do not let things touch your shadow” is a more troubling warning.
- Some deaths become history large enough to rename the world.
- Snacks do not make lore safer.
- I require a faster writing hand and possibly a second one.
Next time, I should prepare pages in advance for Archons, Lords of Chaos, Ents, dangerous creatures, dangerous names, dangerous places, dangerous family structures, and things that are dangerous but not yet filed.
Also, I should stretch my hand before sitting near well-informed adventurers.
Additional note to myself: acquire more pens, more ink, and substantially more ledger paper before the next gathering. Possibly twice as much as seems reasonable. Then add one more bundle, in case someone begins explaining history near snacks again.
With ink-stained urgency and sincere scholarly alarm,
Ledger
Leave a Reply