The Shattered Oracle

Lore - Maenthrai's Letters

My love - Kaisos,

I hear from one of the lead Azhemyra here at the refuge, that the work being performed on the artifacts I've asked them to create is almost complete. It should be just a few more months of rituals and weavings, then I can finally return home to you.

If the completion date is as the artificers claim, it seems somewhat auspicous that it should be done twelve years, almost to the day, since my mother first caused the calamity we must now endure. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't feel the blood-ridden guilt inside of me for her actions. Before the event, she was always a kind parent, and I have no doubt that she loved my father, myself, and my siblings dearly. From that, the actions she did when she returned from the Ullthosian Mount were all the more monstrous in contrast.

I always looked up to my mother, you've heard that so much since you came into my life. I wanted to follow in her footsteps and become an oracle as well. Not of the Sharr-vhult, as I found those mystics to be stuffy and too famliar. I always wanted to create my own path, my own way of doing things. I forget, you know this well, you've endured me for so long.

I know you fight me on this, but I hold it to be truth since the very moment I heard about what my mother had done - what horrors she unleashed on this world - when I had to go into hiding with Serranos. To think, the woman who brought me into this world would become a monster that would slaughter my family and hunt me to the ends of the world-plane. Perhaps the murder she gave to my youngest siblings and my father was a mercy. She wasn't as merciful when she destroyed all of Oerstav Caelii in her wrath.

I've always wondered what visions she saw that would drive her to such madness. What powers were there in that old temple that might turn a mortal woman into such a fiend. Despite your continual warnings, I will soon find out. You know that I have not been able to return to Oerstav Caelii. Many of the oracles I work with state that to do so would be suicide as my mother still roams that land in search of myself and Serranos. I sent some members of the Guardian Knights and a few trusted oracles of station to look into the ruins of the Ullthosian Temple. They've just returned with shipments of artifacts, marbles and ancient stone from that place. The Azhemyra are using those artifacts to create the orbs I requested. We will be able to use the energies of those artifacts to reach through and pierce into the time that Merithault was there.

I will finally be able to see what my mother saw those years ago. When the enchantments are completed, these orbs will be able to store and hold all the memories of the oracles. We can use these to keep our culture alive when the world dies. I know you doubt the visions of old diviners, but I must assure you, this will come to pass. The horrors that my mother let loose will tear this world asunder. We exist in the calm before the storm, and we must seize this time to prepare.

Please give my love to Isyn and Loelan. I know it must be painful for us all to be separated like this for so long. This must be done. Please understand my love, this is all we have left.

A letter from Maenthraei Haullpent to her husband

Found in the archives of the Sharr-vhult

Morrthal City

What have I done...

Kaisos, my love... Take the children and run...

Go where she can't find you...

Where I can't find you...

You must ensure our bloodline survives at all costs...

The world is going to end, my dear love, we are all damned...

She is on her way. Save the children. They are our only hope...

Blood scrawled across papyrus

Preserved in the archives of Morrthal City

Assumed to be the last message from Maenthraei Haullpent