My dearest brother,
Father was right. I discounted his ravings at first, but now I have reason to believe everything.
A few months ago, in one of his brief moments of peace, he told me of a place some distance from Ashenport where he had made a discovery. There is a cave, cut into the side of a hill, inside of which he discovered writings in a proto-script that he did not recognize. In the following years, he deciphered these glyphs, which he read for me:
“She wept, her tears shed to preserve what she could,
On the threshold of ruin, alone there she stood,
The enemy came, driving fear and decay,
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One glyph resisted translation and he concluded must be the name of the subject of the inscription.
He asked that I look into this and see what I can discover, as his condition prevented him from investigating further. After father’s death, I grew curious, visited the site and found the inscription myself. It appeared that the ceiling of the passage had given way, and what appeared to be a shallow cave actually went much deeper. I pushed as far as I dared, and what i discovered, well, he was right. The artwork i found, mosaics of crystal and metal, gave accurate depictions of the creatures that father was so terrified about. The creatures of smoke, with fire for eyes and skin like a slick of oil. The men of shadow, their eyes black, using shadows as their cloaks. Above them all, driving them away, was the image of a woman, her eyes as bright as the sun, with tears running down her face.
Please, come and meet me in Ashenport as soon as you can. I need your help, for father’s sake.
Perhaps for the sake of us all.
Alerion
[Submitted by Ornir]