Much activity has passed in Cothon by various barbarian-adventurers pursuing their interests, unrecorded as yet by the Scribes--but to be recorded now.
the Scimitar of Vikonyá -- the Last Goodbye
Just a couple weeks ago, Gan (no relation to Gan ad-Din, companion and servitor of Bartholomew Pettibone) was commissioned by Sesel of the Survivors to do some research on several items. One of these was the scimitar taken from Vikonyá, a pirate-sorceress who was captured at the same time as the capture of the pirate-galley Darkwing.
The sword itself is beautiful; finely balanced so that it swings easily in the hand, but with good heft to the cutting-edge, so that it makes an excellent weapon; but the blade is acid-etched with beautiful calligraphy, making it a work of art as well:
أنا الفاصل بين الطرق ، الوداع الأخير.
من يستخدمني سوف يسرع من الأرض.
I am the parter of the ways, the last goodbye | who lives by me, by me will too from Ardha hie
There is a magic in the poetry, and the sword almost sings through the air as it is swung; if one allows oneself to listen to the song of the sword, one can get carried away with the rush and excitement ... fortunately, when Gan was testing it, he had little enough in his chambers, and only had to replace the tattered remains of his bedding and sheets.
The Last Goodbye is a scimitar +2 to hit and damage; after 1 round of combat, if its wielder wishes, they can enter a kind of battle frenzy, throwing caution to the wind, and attack at an additional +2 to hit, +1 to damage (+4/+3 total), though at -4 AC because of their recklessness. This is not any kind of "rage" or such thing, and can be ended at any time.
the Empty Hilts
Last month, Arngeir of the Green Gleam, who when adventuring walks clad in wondrous green-hued plate armor with the maker's mark of the Ringing Anvil, began looking into a strange hilts-like object recovered on an expedition some time ago. The object is a short rod, wrapped in wire as one might wrap the hilts of a sword, but there is no blade, and no place for a tang--only the object itself. It was received in trade with the strange "kobolds" of the deep places of the Weirding Caverns, the Zoq-Fot-Pik.
Having seen Durham's "empty hilts", which Durham employs as a kind of second set of eyes, Arngeir wondered if he might help unravel the secret of Arngeir's "hilts", and so he set off to the Ringing Anvil to engage Durham's assistance.
First it was to be noted that the two empty hilts are quite different in form; while Arngeir's is merely the rod--a little long for a sword, admittedly--Durham's "hilts" is topped with a face where the guard would be, with a kind of "mirror" and many studs and twistable knobs around that mirror. It is with these studs and knobs that he controls what he "sees" through it ... and to their luck, Durham's knowledge of such things revealed a similar stud near one end of Arngeir's hilts.
Durham, having seen yet another "empty hilts" in possession of the Survivors of the Tel--an object which projects an intense beam of light from one end--and wondering if this were a similar device, suggested that Arngeir point it at something and depress the stud. And lo! a blade of fire sprang forth, with a wash of intense heat and light all around:
Surprised, Arngeir released the stud, and the blade disappeared as suddenly as it had manifested. Armed with that knowledge, with a little additional testing, Arngeir discovers a catch to keep it depressed so that the blade can be swung freely and handled like a sword. This empty hilts, it appears, actually is the hilts of a sword--a sword of fire!
the Zortrium Mirror
The other item Gan was commissioned to research was the mirror of greenish metal recovered from the so-called Undercity, or Medina al Taht, one face of which is polished to reflective clarity, the other side of which bears strange logograms spiraling in toward the center, this item has already been researched a little by Raoden of the Survivors, who revealed the bare meanings of the logograms:
"Lord of the Center, Lord Eater, Pit of the World, Wearer of Fuligin, the Circle, Hound of Hell, Master of the Black House, Warner at the Limes"
Now this same Gan looks into it on Sesel's retainer, attempting to divine meaning from the strange writings (while Raoden is busy with his own projects).
Taking the mirror into the stacks of the library at Cothon-Under-Star, Gan searches for similar references in various Klackon cultural works--poetry, narratives, histories, etc. The research is slow-going--sifting through all that material looking for such little references. Things that seem like they might be "hits" turn out to be in reference to other things ...
But eventually Gan hits on something at least: the true black of dlakolel chitin is sometimes called "fuligin" or "fuligin-black". Armed with that connection, Gan began to wonder if there might be some Klackon-kenning related to this mysterious Bel Wasat (Lord of the Center) involving dlakolel?
One thing already noted about the beetle-like dlakolel is that they are sometimes called the "steeds of al Sarakun" [under the art on that post]; thinking this must be something, Gan read about "al Sarakun", thinking perhaps it is the selfsame Bel Wasat--but that turns out to be a dead end, as "al Sarakun" is the Lord of Worms, a kind of divinity of the dead, who could only loosely be associated with this "Bel Wasat".
But despite that frustration, Gan's intuition did lead to something interesting, in the form of a strange Klackon folktale about the dlakolel:
How the Dlakolel Got its Fuligin
Long ago, the dlakolel were white like dores; and they were smaller then, small like their cousin shalks of the desert. And one day, the paths of a dlakolel and a garthm crossed, and though the dlakolel attempted to keep its way, it was thrust aside by the garthm, and its beautiful white shell broken by the garthm's great claws.
Then the dlakolel thought to itself, "I am small and white, and weak and masculine; but I should be great and black, strong and feminine. Though I have beauty like a dore, I should want strength like a black drone." And so it set out on a quest to find its strength and color.
[a series of trials and travails follows, in which the dlakolel is joined by three companions, a chnelh trickster who wishes for real magic, a dri-ant who (similarly ridiculed as the dlakolel) wishes for power, and a kyni falcon who would catch a star; the company discovers a sorcerer in the clouds, Imsaïs, who tells them of a castle-in-the-stars, a dark fortress like a star that is not a star--Bayt al Aswad, the Black House--which is the prison of the greatest of demons, who can grant any wish, because he is at the center of everything ...
... the company contrives a means of flying to the stars, with the dlakolel and kyni carrying the chnelh; and finding the Bayt al Aswad as described by Imsaïs, they enter it, and face more trials, until finally coming face-to-face with the imprisoned demon. The chnelh with its fine words tricks the demon into granting each creature its wish, all without freeing the demon ...]
And so they fled from that Black House, and the dlakolel carried her companions with her: the chnelh with his newfound sorceries, and the kyni who had caught a star, and the dri who would raise up armies. Clad in her fuligin, the dlakolel was invisible to the servants of the Black House, and she hid her companions under the folds of her cloak as she flew, and so they escaped. And the chnelh raised up his towers; and the dri gathered her hosts; and the kyni showed off her star; but the dlakolel only went back to the jungle to live and toil as she had before, except without being bullied.
But as they had been warned, they all felt a great desire to return to the Black House, and it was a curse that had entered into them. And in turn, each would return to the Black House--the chnelh, the kyni, and the dri--and each would be swallowed according to their doom. But the dlakolel, who had gotten her color, but who thereafter lived in her place, defied the call, and so escaped that doom--and so you can see in the dlakolel that it is the place of the white dore to strive for things outside his reach; and it is the place of the black drone to be invisible as she toils, and to keep to her place; and so it should be, that dores and drones each serve their Princess in different ways.
[this last being a Klackon exhortation to "keep to one's place", of course--though it seems a later interpolation on the tale, to make it conform more to Klackon expectations ...]
(the research that got these results for the mirror is "shaky", per Ben L.'s vision of research, and so perhaps sheds a little light on things, but uncertainly ... surely there are more certain identifications of what this Bel Wasat may be ...)
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