__ 21st Moon of Melandru’s
Agnos Gorge and Nolani Dig Report
j44-0.11
The Hawke Heart records did not prove to contain the census report referenced by Simon of Ascalon circa 1070 AE. It is unfortunate the Krytans seemed to have absorbed so much of Ascalonian technology without retaining its heritage. Records requests to the Queen have proved fruitless – if they are even reaching here…
The Nolani and Clarent digsites has proven more fortuitous. A reference in the Priory records hints that a monument of some import was moved Nolani to Clarent not long before the foefire. We expected the monument to clarify events Rurik’s abandonment of Ascalon. Such records were uncovered and bare mention, but that can wait. Apparently the academy at Nolani had see some swapping back and forth between the Charr and Ascalonians after Rurik’s abandonment.
We’ve uncovered something significant here. While removing what appeared to be rubble we found a stone tablet. The tablet was quite large, probably having been salvaged for use as part of a make-shift wall. It was mostly too damaged to determine much of whatever it had originally been. Chisel marks along its face suggest it was part of a still larger section, though we have not found it as yet.
The tablet depicts a brutish sort of primitive Jotun. I emphasize this point. Though this is clearly a picture of a Jotun it is far more brutish than even those who occupy the Shiverpeaks today. Startlingly, this seems to be the intent of the tablet. It references the aforementioned missing sections, detailing a progressive decline of the Jotun. I quote, “…From a once great [line unreadable] …it can be only be guessed. [line unreadable] … Well [line unreadable] … and telescope it may be [line unreadable] … not all Orrian design was of one kind nor from one people.”
If you’re feeling a little breathless then you share in our shock at this. This tablet is written in such an archaic form of Ascalonian it may predate the shattering of Orr.
__ 23st Moon of Melandru’s
Agnos Gorge and Nolani Dig Report
j44-0.13
… I hesitate to write this, but I must. The tablet is no more. We moved it to what we imagined a safer location within Clarent. It was a safer location, but we can only lament now. Scale had infested the area: probably for as long as we had been excavating. When we had finally managed to move the tablet to its new location the floor caved in bring down most of the ceiling with it. We’ve been fighting scale ever since! The tablet was crushed when the ceiling collapsed.
I can only report what we believe we were beginning to grasp from it. There was discussion of an ebb and flow to life in Tyria. The discussion seemed to be related to a type of magical process which makes little sense to any of our scribes. Later lines references seemed to be a kind of poetic ire or curse spat at the gods for what had become of this energy.
The tablet went on to become a kind of mourning, though much of it was too scarred or faded to read. It mourned of some lost state, though we were unable to make a sure guess if this was a state of mind or form. It was referring to the Jotun. From the flow of the language perhaps not in a direct way. It did not seem as though whoever made this tablet had actually been witness to whatever they were mourning. Rather, they mourned for some loss they had come to realize they were uncovering.
" [line unreadable] …how savage they are. How [line unreadable] …a savage, seemingly perpetually [ diminishing species / de-evolving species ] [line unreadable] …. a state. [line unreadable] … [line unreadable] …a species that has lost, but survived the cycle [line unreadable] . Those species that survive [line unreadable] … some much early form of to present constitution. Is this to be our doom as well?"
I’m being told to wait before I pen more. There is forming some heated discussion about how we should interpret this…
__ 23st Moon of Melandru’s
Agnos Gorge and Nolani Dig Report
j44-0.13 2
I don’t believe anyone is coming to a clear consensus about what this might mean. Perhaps we are all dragon-crazed now with the loss of the Fleet, but if this is not a gross over-speculation of what we were able to translate before the tablet was lost…
I’ll be frank. We believe the tablet may pre-date the sinking of Orr and may have been of some Orrian origin altogether. Regardless, (and again, if we have not taken to fancy in our attempts to translate what we had) the tablet may have been discussing the decline of the Jotun from some exalted state to an entirely more primitive constitution. I want to stress we are working from out notes! This may be nothing more than bias over current events! If the tablet was what we imagine though…
Could it be the wealth and variety of life we see across Tyria are really only survivors of some former Cycle of the Dragons’ rising? Those either climbing up or descending down their level of evolution depending on where they are in the cycle? The Jotun are heading down, maybe the Scale are heading up, and the Hylek, Kraith, and some others might be on their way out? There’s always that chance the species doesn’t make it through the Cycle.
Even with the loss of the Fleet I have only ever felt the merest perplexity by the presence of the Elder Dragons. I saw them as nothing more than enchantments to dazzle the easily fascinated; curious, occasionally hypnotic, but no different than a mostly-told-wrong-fable.
I have always argued that the Charr of 1070 unarguably had simply been much more pressing concern than our own situation.
This find, if find it was, raises concerns I can barely utter save the same as the question raised on that tablet: Is this to be our fate?