Er, wait. I thought that in light* of what happened towards the end of the party's Het Branoi adventures, we did know what Step's poem meant.
* Get it? In light of?
Here is Step's poem; or technically... well, read on.
One Certain Step meets the party:
[sblock]Step had a dream some weeks ago about that he believes concerns the party: he saw a dense jungle, and a small bamboo hut hung over with vines; he saw a jet-black tower inside a ring of rock, with a gate of giant ribs; he saw two great swinging anvils, with small figures running between them; and he saw a huge black circle hanging in the air, with armies of evil pouring through them.
Still dreaming, he saw a scared text of Kemma, pages dry and cracked and long unused. He saw the book open, and words blazed out of them, but he could not read them. The next morning when he awoke, he went to the church library and found the book from his dream. In it he found an obscure poem whose meaning had never been gleaned, but which he believes is referring to the party.[/sblock]The poem itself:
[sblock]read the signs as the shadows flow
see a fearsome emerging foe
light must rive the last of five
but don't expect to come back alive
read the signs, you are not alone
those from lands that the foe called home
are fighting the war on a distant shore
to barricade the circle door
know them then by their mix of blood
man and holbytla and child of wood
know them each by their foreign speech
in the court of cats on the day of reach
tell them the door is close at hand
the foe can come forward in any land
his armies will roll through a skysteel hole
and turn their home to a bed of coal
go with them to your certain doom
and be the one in the lightless room
if the light will thrive you must contrive
to go with them to the last of five[/sblock]Everything in the poem seems to make sense, in the way of things once you know all the answers. (Which of course the players didn't at the time.) So what, if anything, remains to be explained?