27 Keent, 637 M.Y.
I do not believe in coincidence and as a matter of caution the rarity of the encounter determines my vigilance. As we sojourn home some dangers are to be expected. But I was wholly unprepared for our most recent trial. After slaying the land shark, Laarus felt a’pull’ from deeper in the recesses of the rocks where we had taken refuge. With great dread and only professional curiosity did I wish to accompany him to the source of his ‘calling’. I was sure to leave the Amulet of Fallon with Victoria as she would not accompany us within.
Ancient Runes marked the passage to a simple cavern, carved in seemless detail. Earth. Mind. Fire. Inside the portal boasted of being the Mind of Oberah. Surprisingly, a mute hermit stood silent sentinel in the chamber of steam and sulphur. If this was his residence it showed no sign of being inhabited. I query where he had come from and where he makes his home, here so far from anything. Man cannot live upon thought alone.
What limited knowledge I do have of the Time of the Six Kingdoms, I do not recall this area – the Land-Sea of Sharnth – being of any particular importance to the Ancients.
Inside Laarus was overcome by an oracle, a planar possession of sorts, exorcizing some control through an emanate heat source. “Sons of Thricia, ever cautious are you. When the wave crashes on Thrician soil it shall be those who act with alacrity that will find victory.” It took the time to berate us our hesitation and cautious nature, or lack of blind faith in random encounter.
“My people ignored the fertile savagery of the bloody earth and it led to their end. The tide rises again. My voice comes to you from afar. Across space and time, through space and time and the planes. The connection grows tenuous. You may ask me three questions. Ask them now.” Unfortunately for us, the power of Oberah was only such that it was able to traverse time and space at precisely the proper moment at which we arrived with Laarus and the hold grew immediately tenuous.
Markos asked of it whom our primary enemy was in regards to the impending tide of savagery, or so the subject would seem. Its reply came, “Too many to name, but you may begin with the Cults of the Beasts.”
Timotheus followed with the obvious, perhaps more important question, of where we should begin our search. The reply lay at “The tower of Stanislaw Torn.” A name I know not.
Laarus seems none the worse for wear, nor his piety shaken. If he is being manipulated, which today’s encounter proves my suspicions correct, I am still uncertain as to the benevolence of his experiences. I will continue to observe him, mindful that there are indeed outside influences at work upon him and that he is not solely touched by Ra.
‘I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.’