Sense Datoken
Art Statistics | |
| Focus: | Insight (Minor) |
| Cost: | 1 |
| Orbit Required: | 5 (25) |
Duration
Instant
Description
Tells name and location of dreaming Datoken
Plateau Effect
None.
Art History
Discovering Menson at Order of the Sable Moon facade, I introduce myself and get down to business. He owns a story that I have been pursuing, and given that I have never come across him in the city, I decide that I must take the opportunity while I can. At the time, members of the order and friends are carrying on an experiment of their own, and there is much activity in Trinity.
He gives me one condition for the telling, and I agree. I must make this story public and known to the city. (This is beneficial for me of course. If he hadn't made me promise, I would have had to ask him.)
He leads me through many obscure passages to Spirit of the Rebel sanctuary in the Barrows, and patiently waits while I lose my way several times. Inside he stands before the central font while I try to organize my papers. Castor appears and stays for the entire tale, and several others pass through and listen for a short while.
"At the beginning of the year of redemption, much was going on in our city... most of which centered around the Keepers of the Eternal Shadow, and their new ruler Tzayak.
"I could go on and on about that, but I won't... you asked for our story, not the general history of the time period.
"At the time, I was a devout pledge to the Keepers of the Eternal Shadow. I became a member nearly a year later, my main reason for wishing to be a part of that house, was the aspect of true balance they strive for. The balance between order and chaos... Such a balance coincided with my personal goals, and so I dedicated myself to the entity they worship, in hopes of furthering my own means, while furthering theirs. I was involved in a number of wars during my pledging and membership in the Keepers of the Eternal Shadow... I don't quite recall what they were over, but I do know they had nothing to do with my goals, and were wasting valuable time. Later on, the majority of the Keepers of the Eternal Shadow did not agree with my thoughts, ideals or methods... my time as a Keeper of the Eternal Shadow came to an end.
"My goals are the most important things to me in my dreams. No dreamer, no house, nothing will ever come before them... There were dreamers at the time, who had watched my skills in both experiments and battle. Dreamers who were as ambitious as I, and were willing to help me achieve my goals, if I would help them achieve theirs as well. Those dreamers, I am sure you are familiar with, it is why you approached me. Folko, Hrrum and Voxaroth.
"After many long discussions over the following days, I was initiated into the Union of the Covenant one week later. I was initiated the same day that Folko, Voxaroth and Hrrum were to instate a new belief system into the Union of the Covenant. I am sure you are interested in the belief system, yes? I can honestly say that I do not remember them word for word, their statement on paper was unique enough that it left a number of loopholes to work with in times of a crisis. The principles were the same as they are now, and always have been. Freedom, Justice and Defense. Yet, such terms have been twisted by so many in our city, that they were not prepared for us to take the terms quite literally. We took the terms exactly how they sound. Each and every dreamer was entitled to both freedom and justice, regardless of who they were, or what they may have done. And we would defend anyone who sought it, as long as their punishment was not deemed "just" However... such things only mattered to some.
"I myself was there because of my ambition; I sought to serve under perhaps the most ambitious dreamer of all: Folko. Much commotion was caused on the night that we changed our oaths, and altered our beliefs. A lot argued against us... but that was to be expected, dreamers are not comfortable with change, especially not change that would bring upon them a challenge. The dreamers who opposed our changes the most, of course, were House Calenture. And many times over the course of our stay in the Union, they attempting to stop us with brute force... but I believe we all know that doesn't work.
"Our first project, was the creation of the art Sense Kotoken... If I were to get into detail, we would be here for hours while I explained each and every little detail of every single one of our projects, but I will not bore anyone with that. Needless to say, a large event happened while we were attempting to eject energy from our prime to permanently power the art... Black-Lotus led a counter-attempt, which damaged the art and created an alternate art instead.
"I am sure by now, all of you hold this art, yes? Indeed, when you use it, remember. You are using an art created by Folko, his union, and damaged by Black-Lotus. Now... on to a fact that will prove important later in my story.
"We used our prime a myriad of times, we proved to this city that they are more than storage units, if used properly, the energy released from a prime artifact can do many, many things. Our next project was much, much more dangerous. It met more opposition than any other project I have been involved in... a fact lost on most of the houses. We gathered on the Edgeward Barrows, in the ring of passage and attempted to break the barrows off from the generators, and power it with our own prime.
"Needless to say... we damaged the plane... immensely... in fact, if we hadn't reconnected it to the generator, our city may have lost nearly sixty dreamers who were present. That is how the Sinkhole you mentioned, was created. Now, I am still not quite sure what the sinkhole was... but we attempted many experiments regarding it... I was sent into the sinkhole, as a scout, and when we poured energy into it, along with my own energy, I was torn into the Dorsal Rift, and almost swept off into the chaos. I am unsure if it was fixed, I have no intention of visiting the site again.
"Now...
"Our story takes an odd turn here...
"Reshilo attempted to steal the prime artifact of the Union of the Covenant, and we had placed her upon Seek and Collapse (SAC) for it... Now, this is where the betrayal comes into the story. Things began to disappear, important things... incriminating things. A task written for me by Hrrum, which involved espionage and manipulation was stolen from our house vault. Not more than three days later. Rhyena Varick relieved Folko from his position as ruler, on false claims of him endangering our prime, when the majority of our home did not accept those charges. She decided to use a new excuse, that we... how did she put it... We corrupted the paths of justice.
"Those dreamers within our home who mattered, still remained loyal to Folko, and not twenty four hours later, we were all demoted for not viewing Triste as our ruler. I suppose it could have been labeled treason, but she never was much of a ruler... Folko led our home, she simply stood in the background and nodded, so to speak. Now, we were loyal to each other because of one thing. We were ambitious, and we sought change, and of course power, but there are very few who don't. We formed up our own group, known as the Dreamers of Earth and Night... I believe I still have my uniform somewhere...
"Yes indeed.
"It appears I do.
At this time, Menson's garments suddenly change, and he stands before us in his old uniform.
"Now... of course, dreamers thought that they could pick us off like vermin now that we no longer had a home... but our power, while together, prevented any "punishment" from ever happening.
"Back to the sinkhole... Now... as I said, a member of ours had been afflicted with some sort of illness from the sinkhole... and had begun to hear voices... Now, being as how the sinkhole clearly led through the rift and out into the chaos, we assumed it was a Kotoken, or at least a close relative of one... and so we sought the dreamer Mokkan to aid us... We gathered around the sinkhole, with him as our representative... to speak with this being... just as we began to initiate the ceremony... House Calenture, and Triste's ragtag band of dreamers rushed in to attempt to stop us...
"The battle raged on for nearly forty minutes, each side suffering many, many losses. But the energy being released into the sinkhole from each collapsing dreamer was enough to keep whatever being it was interested, while Mokkan conversed with it, which I am glad to say was more valuable than collapsing ourselves over and over again. At the end of their conversation, we fled to this sanctuary to discuss what Mokkan's results were. And we were astonished to find out, that he made a deal with the being... and received this..."
Menson holds up a tinted sphere for each present dreamer to see, before carefully placing it back within his pack, a cautious look upon his face.
"We studied it for a long time, and the best that we can make of it, is that it is a key of some sort, which would release said creature. We never did find a true use for it, but that’s beside the point. After this occurrence, we began a new project, while helping Black-Lotus with one of hers - for the correct payment of course. Actually, this project was our final project and it is still unfinished. Do you remember when I spoke of goals, and how they were more important to me than anything else within our city? Well, this project was my project, my goal... the one I had waited nearly two years to attempt, finally I had the right support, and so we began the work. After a series of six events, we created an artifact of sorts... it would work similar to a prime artifact... draining, storing and releasing energy... but it would take it from raw sources rather than essences, such as... for example... The city’s water source, if you are familiar with Black-Lotus's theory on water within our city, that would help, if not... seek her about it, it's quite interesting.
"Now... we created this talisman with much help from the city, many powerful dreamers supported our project for their own reasons, for you see... the project would solve many, many questions if finished."
Menson reaches into his pack and removes a Spherical Apparatus from it, holding it within his grasp and looking it over, clearly admiring his work.
"This talisman, I believe, can be used to create a lesser nightmare. Such as a common Emphant. That was indeed my goal, for many years, and it still is my goal. After it was created, we planned to use it... but such a time never came about. We became distracted by Triste's attempts at closing the sinkhole, of course... because of Mokkan's deal with the being within it, which I am still bound to, to this day... we could not allow it to be closed. We managed to foil the attempts, at least the first attempt...
"Later, we did attempt to torture a dreamer and send her into the chaos as an offering to the being we had made a deal with... he required energy to sustain himself, and so that was our plan... I believe we did, Skuld was her name... she vanished for a little while... The city accused us of murder, but apparently we had only harmed her, not murdered her.
"Our group began to fall apart after that, all of us left the city for a time. There was no reason for it, we had no strife within our "ranks." Folko, Hrrum, Voxaroth, Biermaken, and Myself were still doing many projects, and accomplishing many things, but still our ranks deteriorated, and then simply ceased to exist. Snake Shadow was one of ours as well, I do not want to let his name go unmentioned, after all, he was the slave you spoke of... Perhaps not a slave, but he did serve me, and still does, even though he is absent from this city. Now, all of us have our own goals and we have split off in search of our own goals, and our own places within this city.
"While I believe we will always be "Dreamers of Earth and Night".. our paths no longer converge, and our past together is now simply a part of history."
Only weeks before I write this, Fiorel listened to parts of Menson's story in person. He came from the tale feeling that more needed to be told. History is such a strange, subjective thing, and as always I am interested in hearing the story from another viewpoint. Fiorel agrees to share his story, and leads Brother Timothy and myself up to the Ring of Passage for the telling.
"The Union was going through some changes.. I recall Voxaroth speaking of a new oath to seek out injustice and oppression and fight it no matter what form. They had begun to show some promise, I was intrigued. Then, they started to have big ideas, big plans and this experiment came up that worried many in the dream. Voxaroth presented this plan to separate this plane from the power generators in threshold pits and use the Union's solely the prime to power it. So, the Entranced were worried.
"MrChaos, our Ruler came back for a brief period. He would have led us into battle to stop them, but at the end of the week he thought better of it. But he said that such a detachment could have drastic effects... even shattering other plane's connection to the inner ring. So, we came upon this plane with purified waters from the Basins, and the Entranced Emblem and continued to the entrance at Cenotaph. We tried our best with our counter-ritual as the Union and spectators were here doing theirs. After we had finished with our ritual, we heard a loud crash across Edgeward. And later we found this room had a sinkhole right there above the alter. It became cold as the plane lost its energy gradually through the hole (or so that’s what is thought was happening) We had the Ancients to thank that it was just this plane that was affected severely. But this room was freezing. However the faithful walked this plane unaffected. I can attest to feeling warm."
Fiorel ends his story for the evening, and we reconvene two days later in Free Spirit Sanctuary to listen to the conclusion. Several listen in, Including Restrel, Crystalline, Brother TImothy, Xererth and Catawatch.
"Weeks after the events I described previously, I was walking up to House Calenture on an odd day. There were a couple dreamers there and I found Guardian Kailee at the facade. Kailee said that she sensed Skuld on Edgeward and that she was worried. I'll note that Kailee could have been Ruler at this point, but I always remember her best as Guardian. So, we woke back to threshold and walked out to EB where we found Isis. I don't remember exactly what was said, I got very worried at this time. Skuld was at the Ring of Passage. She was badly injured and bleeding. She came into this sanctuary as such, and seemed delirious.
"We asked Isis what had happened. Apparently Hrrum had bound her at the Ring of Passage and Folko tortured her and collapsed her there. It was here that Kailee held Skuld while she looked out into the sky and muttered non seneschals except for "Staffa," over and over, and she reached out. Kailee tried to get her to hold on. After a while I could see, a white hand... I swear I saw it, translucent and white reaching out to her in response. And then she was gone from the dream, and we thought that she ascended to Nirvana, to Staffa. I believe the name of her husband.
"Kailee was furious, I was angry. We sought revenge, and attacked Hrrum on numerous occasions. We never did have the chance to go after Folko the one who was supposed to have done the act itself. But we let our rage control us. I learned later what they were doing then. The dreamers of Night and Earth had made a pact with the Dread Warden. A being on the other side of the passage to chaos. How I learned this is the next part of my story... Eventually we found that Skuld was not actually gone. She came back to the dream and stole from the Gathering's vaults. She said that Kailee was unfit to Rule, and again Kailee acted strangely. I still don’t understand why she was so angry with Skuld for returning.
"These are events that led up to Skuld stealing from the vaults and possibly even from the house library, half of the codi were gone. Again, Skuld was different upon her return, but she told me that she would never forgive the dreamers who did that to her. Any thought that she might have been a "willing sacrifice" should be banished.
"And the dreamers of Night and Earth were only feeding this dark deity.. but weeks afterward I was speaking with Taroneh. She was working toward a solution to the hole in the Ring of Passage. with Guardian of the Union, Jalakura. Taroneh Afsoon had kept a secret for a very, very long time. She had the tome of the Ring, and a key to the passage that was passed on to her from a Master Luinitari and was as she called it, "The Warden of the Ring of Passage." She still intended to keep that secret, but I've ruined that for her now.
"The tome was old and had to be re-inscribed. The new one that she was going to rewrite was a black covered book; on the other side it was white. The pages were empty because she had not started on it. She had to rewrite the words because they were largely illegible. Time was also key, because we had to keep our activities under wraps from Folko, who would have done anything to keep the passage open. At the end of that week, we had a date set, and Taroneh had a plan worked out.
"She wanted to set off three separate rituals at three different times, one being the real closing ritual, to throw off any op-posers. That changed quickly, because of the complexity of the ritual and that more than a couple people needed to be involved. She even had a code word to signal the start of it... oh, I wish I could remember it."
Fiorel stops and leads us up to the Ring of Passage again, where he continues his story. He gestures to the altar in the center of the ring.
"They were one of each focus, standing on the points there: Triste, Jalakura, Norkight, and me. And Taroneh was in the center... dreamers lined along the sides. She began to read the words of the ritual from the tome. "
Fiorel moves closer to Road of Sorrow North.
"And then, Folko walked in and tried to take Shemei hostage here, demanding that Taroneh stop speaking and listen. She read the next line aloud, regardless. Folko threatened once more and then Maal attacked him. And then the scene turned completely to chaos.
"The dreamers of Night and Earth poured in through the portal across from where I was standing. "
I look in the direction of Fiorel's indication to The Crossroads portal.
"Deafened everyone on the alter quickly, I couldn't hear most of what transpired at all. I could not tell you what Taroneh Afsoon's words were. They tried desperately to Push us off the altar and we struggled to get back up each time. And finally we all ended up collapsed and soulspheres up there.
"Taroneh said that she absolutely needed to be in her avatar form to complete the ritual, so she was restored and she turned the key, here.. And before she was faced this direction on the other side of the altar. "
Fiorel moves in front of the altar, facing the Chasm of Souls entrance.
"There was no great response, but she said it was done. And the battle was still going, so we left for sanctuary. It was a long battle, after we left the dreamers of Night and Earth gained control of this area. But those who came to watch were also there to protect us. So, we regained the area and they collapsed enough to drive them to sanctuary. It was interesting, both sides then went to separate sanctuaries and discussed."
I look up from my writing, surprised by a sudden realization. "Gold and Free Spirit Sanctuaries?" Fiorel nods. Menson led me to Gold Sanctuary to share the story. Fiorel led us to Free Spirit Sanctuary. Fiorel continues:
"There we spoke with Taroneh. She had said that it had gone as well as she hoped, and she believed that we followed the instruction of the previous Warden well enough to close it. Jalakura said he had placed some sort of trap in the passage should they try to reopen it. I sincerely hope its closed for good, the Dread Warden cut off from the dream. So no other dreamer would have to suffer for something so immoral as Skuld did. For some pact with something that feeds on fear and dreamsoul."
I thank Fiorel for his time and for his captivating story-telling.
