Last Stand of the Dorinthians (Chapter 4- The Second Invasion)

[Deuce Traveler]

The salt mephit looks up at Dartis and seems to compose itself as it speaks in a voice of awe and admiration, "Box? This is no box, but the prison of Goreallis Sundhearterfirebaneundermaster- one of the last and second greatest of the gnomian geomancers. I and my cousins were with him during the last days of the War of the Patricides, when his own children and grandchildren came to bring the great one down and bind him forever in a sarcophagus of fire and ancient memories. He sleeps still, wrapped in flames and bound by chains of earth, wind, and water... but he dreams and in these dreams he remembers us and murmurs pleasantly in our minds about forgotten days when the gnomians were great lords and we were servants to his race and kin."

 

[Deuce Traveler]

"Take that, gritf*cker," Barok sneers as he kicks the dead mephit across the room before turning to the crying prisoner with a menacing look, examining his dagger for damage.

Barok sees no damage on his dagger.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

The mephit looks around at the array of puzzled expressions and says, "I see you do not, or perhaps cannot understand. The very ground you feel beneath you answered to the geomancers' songs. Ours was once a beautiful kingdom to behold before the winged ones came... before they caused the schism. Once we no longer shared a common cause, the ties of family unravelled and a time of upheaval came."

 

[GlassEye]

Silas is spellbound by the mephit's words and the theories that spark and spiral out from them. "Seems like Barok may have been right about the winged elves," he murmurs quietly. Speaking more loudly he says, "A Geomancer? Tell me, what relation does your master bear to the Lord of the Mountain?"

 

[Nephtys]

"The tyranny of idealism..." Barok muses half to himself. "Let me guess. The Elves judged the Gnomes by impossible standards, seduced some of them with blind idealism and turned them upon their more pragmatic fellows. Clever, if it was their intention to destroy the gnomes. It seems the elves were either evil or stupid, and the buggers were far too skilled with magic to be that stupid."

 

[Deuce Traveler]

The mephit looks puzzled at Silas' request, although when the abjurer describes the creature it replies, "Ah... yes, a nasty piece of work that one is. Still, my master has the power to move the ground itself and it should not be a difficult thing for him to seal it back into this mountain while the Fey lull it back to sleep. Still, I am forbidden by oath to do what is needed to free him."

Upon Barok's words the mephit nods. "Yes! Yes! The winged ones were indeed evil for causing the children of the Geomancers to turn against their own. The children broke the laws of the gnomians and sided with lesser races. Before the schism they even went so far as to behave like the lesser races and in doing so created a lesser race of their own," the crystalline creature says in disgust as he glances towards Phly and Caramip. "Still, even their children were grudgingly accepted until that generation began to disagree with how we treated our slaves. As if the lot of goblinoids and kobolds could ever be better without my masters."

 

[Nephtys]

"I think history has proven them unable to improve their own lot." Barok agrees with the mephit. "But what would be your masters stance on Humans, I wonder? Would he respect us as the enemies of his winged elven enemies, or would he regard us as yet another slave-race?"

 

[Deuce Traveler]

The mephit shrugs and answers, "The gnomians were only concerned with our own territory and were not expansionist. They saw you Locusi as interesting and wondered what would happen when you encountered the Avariel, but except for a few doomed excursions into our lands by your own ancestors, the gnomians left well enough alone. We pretty much watched as you Locusi wiped out the other lesser races while subjugating and absorbing some of the primitive human gathering communities that you encountered. The geomancers thought this was a waste of potential slaves, but since your peoples actions were outside our lands it was also outside our concern."

 

[Fenris]

Dartis has been listening intently while the mephit spoke. Pondering as the other aske dmore questions. Finally though he had to speak.

"Wait, now you are saying that we, we humans, are descended from the Locusi? So the elves are from the Avariel. And your master was a gnomian. And the gnomians created you mephits? And the mephits created the goblins and kobolds? Ha! I'd love to see Rix's face when I tell him this. But wait, how do the gnomes fit in here? Arg, I am getting lost in the lines here and I am used to heraldry! Silas can you fathom this history? And is is this Goreallis we need to seal the Lord of the Mountain again. I feel like we keep creating new problems to fix the old. Mephit, where did the Locusi come from?"

 

[Deuce Traveler]

The mephit shrugs, "My knowledge of past events is broken after the defeat of the Geomancers, and I never cared to learn where the Locusi themselves came from as they were of little concern to us until they began to approach our borders. All I know is that the nearby humans were a relatively docile and primitive lesser race before the Locusi came and a few centuries afterwards there was little left of the Locusi except in small segments of your language and the fact that your people often act like them. It's strange for me to explain this, but my master was not able to communicate for centuries after his defeat and when he now does it is normally through visions. During the rare times he doesn't dream of the past he sees what the earth sees, and passes those visions at times to his servants. Thus we learned the changes of dialect through the slow march of time, as well as parts of your history, such as the coming of the Rider and the rise of the House of Dorin. Or the gnome's loss of their original language to the corrupt version it is now. It is likely that you are descended from the Locusi, and it is likely that the elves are descended from the Avariel, but my master was not recovered enough for us to know for sure. In the centuries that were lost, the Locusi and the Avariel disappeared and the tribes that Dorin united and the elves appeared. The gnomian Geomancers brought my own people from a place outside of this world to be their servants, which we readily did once we witnessed their power. But the gnomians grew bored and eventually created weaker gnomians from pieces of themselves. This second generation lacked the powers of their parents, and could not create children for themselves... so they caused the First Betrayal and gave up the some of their few higher powers passed by their sires, and using that lost power along with Avariel help made themselves into male and female, and then begot the lesser race of the gnomes who themselves converted to the philosophies of the winged ones and attempted to free the slave races, causing the Second Betrayal. Then came the Third and Fourth Betrayal, the sins that must not be named, and with it war. As for the origins of the Geomancers, no one besides they themselves and perhaps some of their children know it for it was forbidden knowledge. The goblins and kobolds may have been created by the gnomians, but from what I remember they were already slaves before the Geomancers began playing with creation."