Or not.

No matter how long I stared at the parchment, or from which direction I decoded the symbols, I could not get a single character on the headstone to match anything in my homemade cipher.

For a moment, I sat and pushed my back up against the headstone, bending my knees toward me and clasping my hands around them. There were a couple of easy “go-to” explanations, and the first one that came into my head was the most simple, and probably the most likely – the unknown characters were numbers. Of course, I had no tradespeak translation for numbers, as I only had the message on the brass plate of the box to use as my starting point, all of which were letters. It was then I started to realise that the importance of the headstone was probably overstated, but in any case I had no way to be sure. Graves share a common feature in that they have dates of birth, and dates of death inscribed on them. It would obviously be a point of contention that there was no body buried here, so the numbers on the headstone could have been a reference to something else, but there was no way of translating them anyway. For now, this was a dead end.

I quickly got back to my feet, copied the symbols from the white headstone onto the back of my parchment with a pencil in case I needed to revisit this later, and started to head back to where I had moored Slepnir. All I had to go off was the apparently unopenable box that was sat on my desk in Tylmerande. With no other clue or lead, I’d have to start with that.

***

I walked through my front door, throwing my coat on the wall mounted peg in the corridor and dragging my satchel behind me. A quick walk took me through the hall and into my study and, as I entered, a little glimmer caught my eye. The brass plate atop the box had caught the morning light that had broken through the cloud’s chokehold on Tylmerande. With investigative curiosity once again flowing through my veins, I sat down at the table and placed my hands around it, the little object wrestling free from the paper wreckage around it and floating harmlessly up into my eyeline.

“What are you?” I asked, as my eyes soaked in the details of the container. It was a magnificent artifact - fashioned from some sort of black polished obsidian-like material, decorated with notes of gold leaf and perfectly rugged and straight edged in its construction. Narrow-eyed, I looked at every single side, edge, joint and bevel that comprised the box to find some sort of method of opening it. There wasn’t a catch, a lock, a seal or anything that indicated that the box was actually intended to be opened, yet the rattling of the contents did enough talking.

The inclination was to simply break the box open. The risk that I would damage the contents was high, especially with my magic being more lethal than ever these days, and this would render my efforts to find out what was going on utterly meaningless. But, it was a risk that had to be taken. Storm had said this once before, and he was right; “there was but one task in the world, and that was the killing of this great evil”. While Arius was undeniably dead, there was no way to verify for sure that his machinations weren’t, and those included items and artifacts of interest to him before his death. Unless, of course, I saw for myself.

Another thing Storm had been right about was that “strong and stupid was a strategy which had proven terrible.” But today, he wasn’t here to argue the toss with me, and I probably wouldn’t have listened to him anyway.

So, I took the box into my dining area, and placed it onto the stone floor. There wasn’t really a policy for using destructive magic inside the house to open artifacts of great importance, but I figured that the room was wide, tall and well-built enough to withstand a small, concentrated dark matter charge. If it wasn’t, then I guess it was time to refurbish the kitchen, or move house.

I moved the dining room table to the far end of the room, and stowed away any loose crockery on the side. Distancing myself about five feet away, I raised a finger and allowed a very small, very focused amount of dark matter to flow to the tip. It loosed at the speed of a bullet with a thunderous crack, smashing into the box with such force that the sarcophagus exploded into a cloud of shrapnel. Jagged fragments of obsidian scattered and buried themselves into the plasterwork, the kitchen cupboards, the table and the ceiling.

Fuck, I’ve overdone it. was my first thought, but when the smoke cleared I could clearly see a couple of objects piled up in the centre of the cracked stone floor amongst a chalk like substance. I knelt, wiping away the residue, and picked up three egg-like objects.

The first and second eggs were about the size of a chicken egg, one made from what looked like platinum and the other one yellow gold. They were smooth, and had a small but varying inscription on each, again in the ancient typeface. I recognised some of the letters already, but would need to translate the rest of them in the study. The third egg was larger than the other two, made from what looked like polished bronze, and was split in the middle. A quick twist revealed an inner compartment that contained a fragile, folded note. Once again, all of the text was in the ancient script.

This was more like it. Without really giving another thought to the destruction in the kitchen, I went back to my study and set the objects and note down, and began translating on a fresh piece of parchment.

Platinum Egg – “The Eye of ...rovidence”
Golden Egg – “Reflected Diamond”
C.D,

I trust this letter finds you well, brother, and must offer my a..ologies for the long period of reticence on my ...art. Matters of secrecy have ke..t me in thrall of late. The ...ower of the knowledge I am obliged to kee... and ...reser...e weighs hea...ily on my conscience. I fear that, soon, those in my circle whom I have entrusted with my life and darkest thoughts will start to succumb. The shadows linger, and now the ...illars of the faith are far from the beacons they were intended to be, consumed by greed. I am concerned that my life may end unnaturally.

The remaining clans are ...uarrelling, and the watchers are gone. No one other than me is left to guard our sanctuary, and I fear that one has betrayed us all. I am certain that Caligstro’s ...yramid is his goal. My friend, I have no moral right to ask this of you, but for the sake of all I must. There is no other whom I would ...lace the trust of our eternal duty. In the case that my sus...icions reveal themselves to be true, I im...lore of you to shoulder my burden. The ...ower of Caligstro’s ...yramid must never be the tool of a sole bearer. Yet, its e...istence must not fall out of knowledge. It is a dire legacy I beg of you to carry, but for the sake of our ...rogeny, it must be done.

There are few alive now who know of its location. The s...oken word will die with time, so only there, at the Lindenhurst Library, will you find what you are looking for. It is the core of our society.

I ...ray for your safety, and that “he” does not succeed where many others failed.

Eresu Kunukkum Atu. Far away lands, in the future, empower our flesh.

Yours always,
G...
Without a word, I pulled the note back towards me, staring into the abyss as I tried to absorb its message. If I'd really been paying attention, I probably could have filled in the missing letters "P" and "Q" in my cipher, but my mind wandered to fresh questions.

What was Caligstro's Pyramid, and was this what Arius was looking for? Who was "G?" Who was the "betrayer" in the note? When was all this written? What and where was Lidenhurst Library?

As I sat back in my chair and chewed the end of my pencil, I realised that I was in danger of being overwhelmed by all of this new information. I had gone from no leads to about five in a few minutes, after all. But now was the time to start digesting and focusing on individual topics of interest. So, I cleared my mind, and slid yet another sheet of clean parchment from across my desk to make notes.

Lindenhurst Library - What and where? Surveyance maps of Corone? Check Radasanth.
Caligstro's Pyramid - Never heard of. Information in Lindenhurst? Sounds dangerous.
Platinum and Gold Eggs - Eye of Providence, Reflected Diamond. Meaning? Purpose?
Dating of letter? Find professional / historian.
Who is the betrayer? Associate of Arius, ect?
Who is "G?" and "C.D."? - no further information.
Check any of this with Storm?
Clean Kitchen.