A Brief Dissertation On Metaphysical Knowledge

[Zebanamana 410]

On the shore of the Abresi Harbor a wooden tube is found sealed tightly and coated in pine tar. The tube has been weathered by the waters of the seas and the passing of time, but it is structurally intact, and has not had its seal broken. Emblazoned on the wood is the double cross of the Faith. Within is a scroll that reads as such:

 

 

A Brief Dissertation on Metaphysical Knowledge

Researched and Written by:

 

Lord Gilneas of House Vivyaen

Chaplain of the Faith,

and Lord Steward of the Holy Oren Empire.

1425

                                                   

 

Never hath I be’en capable of comprehending the silence of true isolation as I hath in these virgin lands. Always hath I be’en in proximity to the great centers of populations, but nary hath I stepped foot into a land as unmarred by the descendant races as I have when I arrived here from Elysium accompanied only by a company of softer-minded work men. Forsooth, in meditation I believe I hath ventured further into the realms of the transmundane than most men  devoid of magical energies hath before.

 

On the mount that crowns the site of His Majesty, the Emperor Godfrey’s future capital, I fasted for a week. Through the pain of starvation, the thin air of the mountain top, and the smoke of incense I saw through shimmering windows of consciousness and time the wonders of all worlds, and they were beautiful. This dissertation shall begin by describing these wonders, then I shall describe mine method of experiencing them (however I shall exclude specifics as an act of caution), and I will conclude by discussing the implications of this discovery.

 

The sixth day of mine fast yielded unprecedented results in my meditation. Though construction continued on the city below, the silence, both tangible and spiritual was overwhelming, and I could hear what previously was muted. I hath termed it the Cloud of Voices, and it came to me as an ever shifting mass of vibrations. I immersed mineself within the Cloud of Voices; my starvation becoming an imperceptible minor occurrence in these universes of infinite knowledge. I heard voices speak my name, and the names of all I knew, and they described the actions of our pasts that were both known and unknown. To my great surprise, I learned of the events of this new land, and the lands of Elysium though I was so far removed from them. I also learned of events to come, from what seemed logical and probable, to the most strange and impossible of conjectures. The voices spoke of all the denizens of Aegis and Asulon personally and impersonally as if they were a cast of characters tied together by bonds none could comprehend. They spoke of the past, present, and future in a way that inspired primal fear within me, and overwhelmed as I was, I listened for new voices.            

 

Within the Cloud, I listened to a cacophony of voices singing tales of different worlds, different technologies, and different beings in all the languages there ever was, is, and will be, and in this chorus I realized how insignificant we children are to the Grandeur of Creation.

 

I awoke from my stupor on the seventh day lying upon the shore of a great and unrecognizable sea. The sky was black but glow’d with an ethereal luminescence; beneath it waves of parchment ebbed and flowed. I stood an ant upon the coast of the Sea of Scrolls and awed at the infinite compendium of wisdom before me. I swam amongst the waves, lost in characters, symbols, and languages of every people, of every nation, of every realm, and world, and universe within the great multitude.

 

The papers lacerated me as I propelled myself through the waves, and I bled the blood of knowledge and the crimson of my veins was the ink of my essence. From the sea I found every text of our world; every text of Aegis, Asulon, the Verge, Elysium, Kalos, this virgin land, and all lands we inhabited before and will traverse in the future. The deeper I swam the more I learned of our Creation, and the discourses of our universe’s natural laws as written by the Aenguls and the Daemons, and the further out I swam the more dissimilar the knowledge written applied to our present waking reality.

 

I awoke the night of the seventh day back on the top of the mount that would crown the future capital. I understood now the essence of our nature and the nature of all things, and I wept at the horror mine senses experienced. Man all-knowing, cannot be a man living free.  I saw that which the Creator hath seen, and heard, and spoken, and written; I know now the sin I, and others like me, hath committed.

 

---

 

My method was perfected in the years I spent aiding and directing the construction of the future city. I shall write of it in sweeping generalities so as to prevent others from achieving this heresy. Three months I subsisted off of a diet of honey combs taken from bees of the western marches, tea of mint taken from the forests of the south, and the substantial root of a native tree from the far west of the continent. On the third of every week at the break of dawn and the fall to dusk I meditated at the summit of the mount hanging by dislocated arms from the boughs of an apple tree.

Every seventh day, I performed self-flagellation of a specific number and frequency and prayed until the dawn of the next day. The final week of the three months I ceased my diet and subsisted only upon a cask of wine that had been distilled and aged beside the fallen stars in the Holy Land of Asulon. The sixth day of my fast began my visions.

 

I will not yield the in-depth specifics of my method, knowing that others will attempt what I hath done to achieve power and greatness. What I hath done is heresy, yet it must be understood that the extent of our Father’s Creation is greater and more complex than anything precedented. The knowledge taken from the Cloud of Voices and the Sea of Scrolls may be observed, but its use would be tantamount to the highest order of sins.

 

I understand now a phenomenon which hath plagued us voyagers between lands. The occasions in which individuals or groups of people would obtain information and knowledge that would be impossible for them to have ever possibly learned. The people who appear knowing all, yet hath never spent an hour learning. Those who doth appear and know the name and history of an individual they hath never known, or in stranger cases when they refer to individuals by strange codes and monikers. These individuals hath listened to the Cloud of Voices or read from the Sea of Scrolls, perhaps by a fluke, or perhaps with malcontent.  In either case, it results in great illogical disruptions in time and perception. Individuals will retain forbidden knowledge one day, and hours and even weeks will be wiped from their mind the next. Populations that bore witness to an event that was triggered by such forbidden knowledge will split themselves between those who recall the event through various imperfect accounts, and those who hath forgotten and hath lost days, weeks, months, and even years of their lives as if the thread of their life was retract to a time before such knowledge was commonplace. In some cases the violators who caused such strange discrepancies in reality will vanish without  a trace some never to be seen again, and others who appear years or even decades later with stories as varied as grains of sand on a beach.

 

What is known becomes uncertain when individuals consume the fruits of Metaphysical Knowledge.

 

As such, to learn from the Cloud of Voices and the Sea of Scrolls should be considered punishable by death except to the greatest of beings who would never utter a word. Those that speak what only the Creator and his Highest of Creations may know  are the highest order of heretic for they seek to disrupt the order of our waking reality.

 

I, Gilneas of the House Vivyaen, shall seal this document and cast it out to sea where it shall join into the Sea of Scrolls until such a time that it is deemed reasonable for it to be seen by mortal eyes a’gain. I know that when this appears again that I shall be far from these virgin lands following my Emperor to the ends of the world and beyond for it is my duty. I plead mercy from the Creator for my sins, and beg that the knowledge of the potential abuses of these transmundane libraries shall be used to slay heretics who wish to reap the benefits of that which God only knows.

 

Deus Vult

 

 

 

((Right I figure I should mention that you can take this or leave it. It is an attempt at a pseudo religious dissertation that would explain metagaming and the issues retconning roleplay would have on the understanding of time for our characters. The Cloud of Voices is symbolically Skype and Teamspeak for Lord of the Craft, and in a broader sense it is supposed to be vocal communication in all worlds. The Sea of Scrolls is a very thinly veiled metaphor for the forums and then the internet as an extension. Again take it or leave it. Your character can simply believe this is the rantings of a madman, and it very well could be, he did starve himself and only drink wine for a week.))

[Archbishop John 85]

The Scrolls a brought to the Church, Bishop John reads over them, he makes the cross and goes down deep within the vaults of the Church to lock the documents away..

 

"God have mercy on brother Gilneas soul." 

[IrishPerson 693]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.