Deciding that the gaping maw of the portal underneath the monastery presents a risk of another invasion, Ravenna attunes to and then closes gate in the caverns.
As the group recuperates from the assault and subsequent liberation of the inhabitants of the monastery, Ravenna corners Mondaleth the Sage, looking for answers about her adoptive father, Kelemis the lost.
Mondaleth lights his pipe and begins.
“Kel was a disciple of Faylin, the Stern Teacher, goddess of Knowledge and the Arcane. One of the few of us that remain, I think. He had dedicated his life to Philosophy, Pedagogy and the nature of knowledge itself. When he was killed, he was working on a theory based on a legend that traces its origin to the murky past about how Az the Deceiver entered this realm from outside of reality, slew the God of Wolves and the Wild Hunt and imprisoned Faylin in his Dark Citadel in Tothkubad.
Kel often visited here from his tower in the unnamed forest, scouring the library looking for more books on philosophy and the art of teaching. He borrowed a great many and I’m not sure if his library in his tower was greater than ours on that subject.”
Ravenna speaks up here, “No longer. When I was captured to be tried as a witch, Kelemis was slain and his tower was burned. I have some of his diaries and ledgers with me but it is a language no one can read.”
Mondaleth strokes his beard and grimaces. “That is ill news indeed. He had a great store of books of ours that will be impossible to replace, I’m afraid.” He sighs, his eyes far away in some distant memory. “The language would be the arcane language of knowledge. Kel and I would often write to each other in it. It was our own secret language for our own little club.”
“Can you help me translate it?”
“I can teach it to you myself so you can make sense of his notes and to ensure the language is not lost forever. Asuming, of course that there aren’t others who can speak it. IN translating Kel’s diaries I’m sure you will find endless screes on ‘how can we know that something is known, something is learned or something new can be learned’.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kelemis had a theory, of course by his own logic the theory could not be proven, but the theory went that, since the Lady of Knowledge was imprisoned and the ‘Master Knower’, the source of Faylin’s devine energy, remained inaccessible to this world, nothing new can be learned.”
“But wait, you are telling me something new to me right now. Aren’t I learning right now?”
“That is true. But the knowledge you are learning already exists somewhere in this world and therefore isn’t actually new knowledge. It is simply new to you. Accoding to Kel, truly new knowledge, knowledge that didn’t before exist anywhere in this universe, cannot be learned without a God of Knowledge and her Master Knower.”
“Kel spoke cryptically of a ‘project’ of his. A project involving the dark city of Calithil. Perhaps his diaries in your posession will reveal more.”
Over the next two weeks Mondaleth teaches Ravenna how to speak the arcane language of knowledge, using her arcane ability to quickly absorb the language. At the same time Magnus trains with Nythel the Master of Combat as well as learning how to navigate the barren, frozen plains in the dark and how to hunt them from the rangers and Ghanorlah and Selthor’ah, the two Koyatki women of the Fire Eaters Clan of the Koyatki Plains.
During the two weeks, as part of the original mission to the monastery, Mar’Khabazza questions Mondaleth about possible motives of the winter elves. Other than sharing some common information about them, Mondaleth has no real insights into their motivations or behaviors.
“If they decide to attack Opal like they have attacked Beryl, they will do so. Alas, but I have nothing of comfort to say to the Council of Opal.”
As for the other occupants of the mirror:
One is Myloomha, a dark-skinned man from the Ana-sin-Emid Plateau a great desert far to the south and west of the Empire. He seems lost and overwhelmed by his circumstance and speaks a strange tongue not known by anyone here.
The other is a tall, stunningly beautiful Noldo elf female named Seelohnor Delohvra who goes by Fortune. Strong-willed and confident, she too cannot speak any languages spoken here but she casts spells of comprehension that allow her to speak with those present, including (black man).
Her tale is she was imprisoned in the mirror long ago- so long that none of the current names of Mondaleth’s map of Cignoria resonate with her.
“With the Khizdushaz Empire reaching back almost eight thousand years ago, she must have been imprisoned much longer than that,” muses Mondaleth.
What stuns Mondaleth the most is her claim that when she was imprisoned, there were things called “stars” in the sky found in patterns and shapes called “constellations”. She is also awed by the constant meteor showers overhead, for Evet was whole and orbited with Kedi in the night sky.
At the end of the two weeks, Ravenna translates Kelemis’ journals [link to pdf] and learns that she is was a project, not a daughter. His translated notes reveal that Ravenna is his fourth “daughter” and that he had sent the first three women alone into Tothkubad to find Faylin the Stern Teacher. All were able to manipulate the three realms of magic as if they were one. All could hear the cacophany of voices in their heads. And none have returned, with Arlaina, the most recent, being sent out four years before his adoption of Ravenna.
Upon reading the news that she was a project, not truly a beloved daughter, Ravenna breaks her current attempt at sobriety and goes on a bender to assuage the realization that she was only a means to an end for the Old Man.
Upon hearing the news of Ravenna’s plight, Mondaleth pays a visit to Mar’Khabazza:
“I have heard the news about Ravenna and Kelemis. If only his library hadn’t burned we might know more of his mind on this. While a driven man, Kel was not cruel and I don’t see him trading away flesh and blood needlessly and he always spoke of Ravenna and the other girls with fondness. Kel dedicated his life to this and I trusted him completely so therefore must I trust in his wisdom.”
“I would ask you, Mar’Khabazza, to convince Ravenna to complete what the others could not. Go to Calithil. Find and free Faylin from the Dark City. Help the Stern Teacher reintroduce innovation and discovery into the world and perhaps we may know the mind of the winter elves. Perhaps the three of you: Ravenna, you Mar’Khabazza, and this Savenia Loresong, archmages all three, might succeed where the earlier three individually could not.”