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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Canaan" data-source="post: 4555681" data-attributes="member: 40239">Jaroth -- The DiscussionOOC: I think I saw somewhere that Finnian has not yet returned.  I'll begin, assuming he agreed to attend this meeting.Jaroth motions for the others to sit at the table.  When they are seated, he invokes a private sanctum, followed by a repulsion field (against evil creatures) that encompasses the tent.  He sits and begins.I have struggled mightily with what to do with this book.  And I have come to a decision after much analysis and sould searching.  This decision therefore comes from my mind, my heart and my soul.  And whether you agree with it or not, I hope you treat my decision with the respect that such a decision deserves.  On the subject of respect, I wish to address what some of you may be thinking at this moment: that I disrespect you and our friendship by not involving you in this decisionmaking process and by merely assuming that the decision is mine to make.  I assure you that no disrespect is intended.  The Book has fallen to me as its guardian, whether willingly or not.  It was I who first held it.  It is I who has been assailed by it.  It is therefore I who hav the most to gain or lose by any decision as to its fate.  In fact, my very soul is held in the balance while we await decision.  For the consequences of any action taken will fall to me.  Any affect this book may eventually have on you (which we have begun to feel) is merely as a result of your proximity to me and your continued friendship with me.  That is why I give all of you this choice.Before I begin, understand that I require all of you to come to this table with open minds, open hearts and open souls.  We find ourselves at a crossroads, a place where our decisions transcend the dogma and values of our faiths and our religions, a place where only our own morality can guide us.  I ask that you shed your sense of duty, of honor, of loyalty to clan, country or god and answer a higher calling, that of Truth.  Please hold your comments until I have finished, as all will become clear by the end.First and foremost I wish to convey to all of you that my decision was in no way tainted by my Order or its political motivations or lack thereof.  Before she left, Lady Very informed me that my Order has officially left the decision to me, for which I am grateful.  Second, as we all know, the spirit within the Book cannot be redeemed.  It is a wild presence, one without morals, without a concept of good or evil, light or dark.  It merely IS.  In many ways, it is a child without self control, prone to lash out without thought.  In this way, it can be manipulated by events, and its existence has been previously manipulated toward evil, which has formed the basis of this spirit's personality.Third, we know that if it falls into the hands of the Drakar, it will give them more power than we can imagine.Based on these facts, I needed to obtain additional information about the Book and the effect it would have should it fall into the hands of various nations or factions.  The following is what I have been able to discern:1.  If the Book falls into the hands of the enemy, Darkness will consume The Four Lands.  the Light will fall and all will be lost.2.  If the Book remains hidden a war between the light and the dark will ensue for a hundred years.  Thousands if not millions will die on both sides.3.  If the Book is taken by the Light, a new holy war will be called for and Thousands if not millions will die in the zealous attempt to purge the land of all that the Light (rightly or wrongly) perceives evil.4.  If the Book is given to Silverwood and falls into the hands of the fey, racial wars will begin and thousands or millions will die as the forces of the light and the dark try to take it back.5.  If the Book becomes lost, all will be left to chance.6.  If the Book is destroyed, I fear a cataclysm that will wipe out all of The Four Lands.In your hearts, you all know that the Dark cannot be allowed to possess the Book, as slavery, death and destruction will result.  That's an easy one.  But through the filter of Truth, you must also know that should the Church possess the Book, another evil will result.  A righteous, unyielding evil, laying low all of those people of The Four Lands who do not wish to see the Light, yet are not in the Dark.  Those that do not profess the doctrines of the Church, yet live a life of goodness and charity, nonetheless.  The Church, left unabated will crush the life out of any detractors, even if those detractors merely protest out of their own sense of what is good and right.  And who is to say that those people would be wrong?  The Church is not for everyone.  But a Holy War, bent on making The Four Lands in its image, weathering no protesters, as Templars march and Inquisitors torture alleged blasphemers with impunity will work a terrible evil on the Lands.  While the Church's servants think they are doing good, intolerance without accountability, a tyrannical majority obliterating the rights of those that are, or are merely perceived, different will result.  Under Church leadership, countless lives will be snuffed out all in the name of the Light.  That will be the fate of the lands should the Book be given over to the Church.  You have all seen it in the past and you all know it is within the power of the Church to make it happen.Hiding the Book with my Order or giving it over to the elves will have likewise dire consequences.  The Light and the Dark will struggle to obtain it, obliterating my order or the elves and many of the forces for Light and Dark in the process.Destroying the Book will destroy everything.  That is no option at all.The only choice, then, is the one I have made.  The Book must be taken out of play.  It must be lost to antiquity.  There is a place, a place of terrible ancient power, power of both Good and Evil, dediated to neither and guarded by both.  It is a place of natural power, ancient even at the birth of the Light.  It is the Fortress of Balance.  Only here will the Book be safe, as both the Light and the Dark will have the Book and it will be used by neither.  It will serve only Balance.  Balance is the only force that keep both the Light and the Dark from coveting the Book.  It is the third of the three great powers (Light, Dark and Balance) and the only of them that does not pursue an active role in The Four Lands.  I have divined that taking the Book to this place where it will be lost to antiquity is the only course that will not result in millions of deaths being laid upon my conscience.It is therefore to this place, deep in the North, where I will travel.  I would have you come with me, help me make this journey and save the world the strive that would otherwise come to it.  But I leave that decision to you.</blockquote>

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