To The Corvi

Morana,

You can surely be of assistance. We will not be begging for aid. We will not pressure any would-be heroes to join us. The nature of our journey to come should call forth solely know who know the risks and choose to venture along with us. For some, that choice will have already been made.


~Nalick DeMarche

Alternatively to Nalick's words,


If those out there would like to walk the path towards inner enlightenment, walk with the flock.

You will be shown things inside of yourself you haven't seen before.

You will learn greatly from this experience.

Father Nalick speaks truth though....

The toll for walking this path will be high,

But in exchange... The lessons invaluable.

How much are you willing to give to improve yourself?

Signed,
Professor Dunn Ironwill

By all means, offer a compelling sales pitch. Clearly, you are a man well-versed in the art, M. Ironwill.


~Nalick

My knowledge of these things is fairly limited, but I tend to agree with Sir Grashügel. If this cult is able to take the pain of those who died a violent or painful death and use that pain to create these monstrosities, then this is a perfect time for them to operate; the other side of a bloody civil war in which thousands died violent deaths, some of them very recent deaths. Guard patrols will be organized around such places where the fallen from the war were laid to rest in Travance. I would ask the Cenobites of Aguara to converse with myself or Captain Silverfang concerning what exactly we should be expecting from either this cult or the monsters they bring forth, so that patrols can be properly equipped and prepared. These barbarians have attacked Travance and hurt several of it's people. Rest assured the Baronial Guard stands ready to play it's part in their destruction.

Lt. Darius,

Though I have not witnessed first hand what these defilers have done, I have knowledge of Ceno and their teachings. In the interest of keeping innocent lives safe I invite you to send missive and I will explain all that I know. I left a raven at this posting. Use it to your liking. It knows how to find me.

P.S. His name is Alphonse. He likes cashews.

Signed,
Professor Dunn Ironwill

All of the above.
If I might add: a grave injustice. Seriously, extraordinary, grave injustice. An affront to Valos; to all the gods.
This cult should be dealt with firmly and swiftly,
Deus Vult
Dii Volunt.

There is not a way to injure a person I have not considered to do to these people, but that is not enough. I will find every person they have ever loved or cared about and destroy them. Then I am going to slowly take them one by one and shred their soles into small useless strips, then leave them with there limbs tied into knots laying in their pitiful road for the rest of eternity as husks.

They tortured my sisters already tortured sole. I saw what they did to Nix, they deserve no compassion. They will die, their families will die, their friends will die, and anyone that thinks that they deserve other than death will die.

Jarden, do not kill those who did not know what their loved one/ friend was doing. They are innocent. Accomplices only.

To all,

Do me a favor and keep those you can alive until my arrival. There may be some within these defilers that either can be saved or took no part in the actions you are rightfully angry about.

In the future, this Cult should be only refereed to as Defilers, as that is what they are. They use Ceno's name but do not walk the path of the enlightened, nor the path they set for us to walk.

The Great Philosopher would see these all as heretics.

Praise be to Agaura.

Signed,
Professor Dunn Ironwill

Dame Ebony,

Your words are true, but to him, so are his. From experience, I can say his visceral speech will not be soothed solely by a knight's etchings on parchment.


~Nalick

So I'm seeing a lot of people very angry about this cult (and rightfully so, believe me, I understand!)
But is there anyone able to give an explanation of who they are/what they have done? I'd like to have a clearer picture of this whole situation.

In reference to the Ceno being able to utilize the suffering of the dead, is it worth pursuing a means to place protections on our gravesites? I say gravesites like every square inch of the Proper isn't rife with worm food. Can we sanctify corpses or temporarily make swathes of the Proper hallowed ground?

Annora (Karen) wrote: So I'm seeing a lot of people very angry about this cult (and rightfully so, believe me, I understand!)
But is there anyone able to give an explanation of who they are/what they have done? I'd like to have a clearer picture of this whole situation.

Morana,

I will attempt to summarize. I am terrible at brevity, but hopefully it will at least make sense.

The defiler cult (Dunn, I recognize that they are not applying the teachings in the same way you do, so out of deference to your years of study I will make the distinction between them and you) has been performing rituals with, it seems, the intent of merging the liminal Red Road space with our material plane and calling forth/creating... something. We don't know what it is, though. When Owen Piper was brought back through the veils he began speaking of a "great beast" that he saw while his spirit was traveling from the Red Road. We do not know if this was truly a glimpse of what they are attempting to summon/create, or if what he experienced was merely damage caused by the nature of his death. Please do not hound him - or any of the others who were brought through - about this without truly attempting to see if they are capable of speaking of it; they have had a harrowing experience and some of them may need more time for their minds to recuperate than others. This is going to sound strange coming from me, but please show them some compassion.

What we fought was - Nix's pain, given form? I think. It looked like a corrupted, shattered version of her. I know that Swyft in particular interacted with Nix's soul extensively before the monster appeared; she and the others around her at the time will have more details on that front. While her soul was clearly the focus of the ritual, I do not know if what we encountered was the end goal, or merely a by-product (as cruel as that sounds).

The other part of this is that the rituals the defiler cult is performing turn the cultists into the undead known as "boneskorn" (the skeletal undead with the long, almost blade-like protrusions where hands would be). Given how many of those we have been fighting in the past few months, this cult is likely very large. It is unknown whether the cultists performing the rituals are aware that this is the result, but certainly whoever is at the top is aware, because someone out there is still alive to keep spreading these ritual instructions.

I welcome the assistance of anyone in both my roles as a Lady of Travance and a Cenobite of Aguara. I thank those of you who are willing to work to keep our resting dead at peace, and I will provide whatever resources I can towards those efforts (though it is not my area of expertise, so I will gladly defer to those of you with more experience in this area).

This is all I know out of certainty; anything else is pure speculation. I'll see if I can prod Dunn into writing down something coherent about what he's learned of the original Cult that existed all those years ago.

Addendum: When we fought not-Nix, Owen noticed that every time one of us healed ourselves, the monster was also healed. His insight was the reason any of us survived at all. This information is important for anyone else who finds themselves on the Red Road.

I feel eyes on me at all times while I share Admiral Piper's company, and I didn't even get dragged to the Road. I'm becoming more convinced that the Admiral either accidentally awakened, or alerted, some beast or the Ceno was successfully in summoning/forging one. Hurray.

Interesting....

A monster within the Red Road? This could be what Galadellians at the time refereed to as the Maledict.

I will look through my research notes for anything of interest, but the Defilers seem to be conducting experiments of their own. Or perhaps it is a last remnant of Ceno's work.

The Maledict were creatures once human who had their forms twisted into unspeakable horrors. I surmise this is the outcome of failed experiments in Ceno's journey to ascend to God.

These Maledict made their way to the highlands after Kormyre drove them from the labyrinth. These creatures souls have been torn and twisted into something irredeemable.

If a Maledict was found, caution must be used. These twisted beings are capable of horrendous violence and carry the anguish of multiple souls.

If one could be captured, we could study it, find more answers. Even dead it may tell us a bit, but alive we could study not only it's body, but it's soul and mind.

Signed,
Professor Dunn Ironwill

Nalick,

But as one of my children, he will take my words with a grain of salt at the least.

Ohhhh it was wonderful and terrible all at once, this blasphemous Red Road and its resident sharp of blade and tongue!

I tried to resurrect her in hopes of freeing her. It seemed like a good idea at the time. What came out was not exactly Nyx but the flayed and desecrated thing her soul had been fused into, mad with torment and fury. A "Fiend" if I remember my readings correctly. Fiends are divine creatures born in the aftermath of despicable evil, forged to serve a devil's will. It brings me no pleasure to say that I think Nyx's ruined soul is lost to us. At least by all theological reasoning.

Suffice to say the thing felled most of us, but my journey through death brought me back more powerful than when I had left, blessed by Her unholy hand Herself. I view it as a sign that we are on the right path.