gates_of_skeldal/lang/en/book.txt

[3w]
& I write this letter on the eve of the most difficult task of my life. Tomorrow morning, I intend to perform the Krow-kane ritual, and it is very likely that its consequences will be so devastating for me that I will not survive it. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it is the only hope of this
sick world, and that is why I decided to make this written statement. In it, I would like to clarify the reasons that led me to perform it. Those who come should also know why I summoned them.<P>
& A long-forgotten legend foretold the demise of our world. On that day, it is said that in the place where the gods rested after they created the world, and that place is Rovenland, the corrupt will of man will open the gates to forbidden dimensions, and shortly thereafter, the world will be flooded
with terrifying monsters and demons, and then, in terrible agony, it will perish. The old prophets also foretold how the "wise" would recognize the time of the approaching darkness and hinted at how to prevent the demise.<P>
& In my land, I, Freghar, am considered a scholar. I have dedicated my whole life to studying how things around me work. Only for this reason could I notice that the night is lengthening at the expense of the day disproportionately to the season. Yes, this is one of the foretold
signs. The prophecy is thus beginning to be fulfilled, and if the prophets were not mistaken, the only hope is the three warriors summoned by the Krow-kane ritual.<P>
& If I have succeeded, you are these warriors. The only advice I can give you is the destination of your journey, which is located in the southeast of the island, from where evil is also spreading. Do not seek help from others, no one would listen to your words, just as
they did not listen to mine. You are left to your own, because the only man who could perhaps help you has not visited this world for a long time. May the gods help you.<P>
<CENTER>
& & & & & & & & Freghar<BR>
</CENTER>
[]

[4w]
& The Creation of Tiroka<P>

& Tiroka is the strongest and most dangerous of the demons in the service of evil. His only essence is Evil, and his only authority is the Evil One. He serves the Evil One and lives from Evil. The ritual "Creation of Tiroka" is the most dangerous of the rituals concerning work
with beings from astral spheres. Equally dangerous is the control of Tiroka in this world.<P>
& The age of this ritual is unknown, but it is assumed that it is as old as the world itself and originates from the rulers of chaos, who slipped it to the senate of the Great Dominion. They used it in the Dominion's most difficult moments to defend the five worlds against Samael's army.<P>
& The creation was successful, but Tiroka serves only the Evil One, and so immediately after its creation, he turned against his creators. Thus, the empire of the Great Dominion was destroyed. Yawizar, the last of the surviving mages, scattered the pages of the grimoire to the most hidden places of the universe to prevent further use, because, as is known, the leaves of such a document cannot actually be destroyed. One of these leaves was allegedly hidden somewhere on Rovenland.<P>
& Tiroka only takes on one specific form. He looks like a large warrior with bull horns. He kills with his eyes.<P>
[]

[5w]
& How to prepare the dead for the journey<P>
& The soul is bound to the body until the moment of the last breath, after which, following the proper ceremony, it is finally freed from the hardships of life and rid of its last bonds.<P>
& Therefore, it is advisable to properly prepare the deceased for the journey to the afterlife, so that their soul does not torment the lives of us living.<P>
& First, it is good to wash the body so that the soul does not have to be ashamed of its body in the other world. Then dress it in clothes, precisely those that the deceased liked the most or chose themselves.<P>
& After that, a spiritual ceremony should be performed, so that the gods receive the deceased kindly and with open arms.<P>
& Before you say goodbye to your beloved person for the last time and close the lid, it is necessary to put an old coin under their tongue, so that they have something to pay the ferryman to the afterlife. This part is perhaps the most important, and the greatest misers then
experience unseen torment throughout their lives.<P>
& After that, it is necessary to nail the lid with thirteen nails and lay the coffin in sacred ground as the last act.<P>
[]

[6w]
& Excerpt from the travelogue of a certain monk, given to you by the Druids.<P>
& I believe in my god. I have never doubted his existence for a minute, and neither have my brothers. But tempting his goodness by venturing into the Dark Forest, relying on his protection, was too presumptuous.<P>
& I noticed the animal only when I was standing right in front of it. It stood motionless and looked at me. I slowly began to count my sins. I did not move either, I did not dare. We stood like that for a long time, and the incredibly beautiful, but certainly equally dangerous, beast kept looking at me. I will never forget its eyes. That brain-searing gaze, which I had never seen before even in the most intelligent human, will stay in my head until I die.<P>
& I had already said goodbye to life and was just waiting for my fate, which stood a few meters in front of me. Out of nowhere, the beast moved, took a few steps towards me, pierced me one last time with its gaze, and then disappeared somewhere into the darkness.<P>
& Later, my brothers and I named it after an old legend, Apagh.<P>
[]

[7w]
& The Last Floor of the White Tower<P>
& I think that of all the people who have ever dared to enter the White Tower, I have gone the furthest. I was really good at riddles, so Nimeth's Tower seemed like one big challenge to me.<P>
& I always thought that the hardest part of a puzzle was figuring out its principle. The fact that I understood the principle here and still did not get any further clearly shows that I was wrong.<P>
& My people say that only a person who has nothing to lose or one who has great power can afford the truth. According to this rule, the mage Nimeth was probably very powerful, because he based his entire last riddle on the knowledge and determination of the truth.<P>
& His doctrine of truth was based on two simple assumptions: that there is only one truth, and that there is always some truth. This needs to be realized in order to know what goal we are trying to achieve.<P>
& The room with the last riddle has four sides. On each side, there are three stone tablets with different symbols. Two small tablets of the same type, but with different signs, on the edges, and one larger tablet in the middle. The tablets on the edges represent the statements of different people, and the tablet in the middle represents the relationship between them. This relationship determines under what circumstances the two statements do not contradict each other or contradict each other.<P>
& Let's imagine the whole room as a world in which we are looking for the truth according to how Nimeth himself recognized it. That is, we are looking for a solution where there is only one truth.<P>
& The people who make statements in this small world are actually only three, which means that there are only three different statements, just as there are only three different types of signs on the edge tablets.<P>
& Each statement can only reach two extreme positions, i.e., the person who makes it is telling the truth or lying. The fact that we do not know the value of the statement in advance means that we have to consider both variants.<P>
& By pressing the edge tablet, we can change the truthfulness of the symbol (person)'s statement. By pressing the tablet, they tell the truth. By not pressing, they lie. I have also listed the meanings of the individual symbols (relationships between statements) of the middle tablets. For the statement of one entire side to be true, the following must apply:<P><P>
<IMG SRC=runas1.pcx align=LEFT><BR>
At least one of them is telling the truth<P><P><P>
<IMG SRC=runas2.pcx align=LEFT><BR>
Both are telling the truth<P><P><P>
<IMG SRC=runas3.pcx align=LEFT><BR>
The first is telling the truth and the second is lying<P><P><P>
<IMG SRC=runas4.pcx align=LEFT><BR>
Either the first is lying and the second can say anything, or both must be telling the truth<P>
& I am actually looking for a state in which all statements are true.<P>
& & & & & & & & & & & & Alebor, the bard<P>
[]

[8w]
& Verses of the Labyrinth of Singing Waters<P>

Like every proper coin, you see,<BR>
Has always got a heads and tails decree,<BR>
So all the world's sides, it will be known,<BR>
Will have their virtues to be shown.<BR><BR>
To everyone there is a thing, it's true,<BR>
That they just simply must pursue,<BR>
Like west without the ocean's mighty roar,<BR>
Could simply not exist, and be no more.<BR><BR>
The north its bells, it needs to hear,<BR>
Their daily chime, so crystal clear,<BR>
Just as the south, it would bemoan,<BR>
Without the winds, it's sorely known.<BR><BR>
The east, a similar vice holds dear,<BR>
To hear the fairy songs, so sweet and clear,<BR>
Who grasps these four, and understands their way,<BR>
A hero's role, they'll surely play.<BR><BR>
If you, oh mortal, seek to find,<BR>
With elements, a peaceful mind,<BR>
You must their whims, without a doubt,<BR>
Completely, utterly, sort out.<BR><BR>
Their longing, what a wondrous sight,<BR>
Is music's charm, pure and bright,<BR>
If you're a bard, with skillful hand,<BR>
Then play your tune, and take command.<BR><BR>

Addian Na Tirnoch<P>

Notes written in a later period, inserted into the plates of the lexicon.<P>

North<BR>
D  G  H  A  H  G<BR>
East<BR>
C#  D#  E  D#  F#  E<BR>
South<BR>
H  G  A  F#  G  E<BR>
West<BR>
D  G#  F#  G#  H  G#<BR>
[]

[9w]
The Story of the Mage Nimeth and His Five Disciples<P>
& In the library, among a lot of other titles that we didn't have time to rummage through, we found an interesting book. It was placed in a meager section of texts on magic, which interests us because without it, it seems, we won't have much chance.<P>
& Even so, we don't have much time to read this, albeit small, area of hermetic texts. The book that caught our attention had a beautiful binding of genuine leather and looked so new. Today there aren't many new texts on magic, and so with hope that perhaps someone who knew something more about it still lives somewhere, we quickly leafed through it.<P>
& The book tells a story about a very powerful and wise mage named Nimeth. This mage reached a very high level of knowledge of magic. He dedicated his whole life to his teaching, and the book begins at the moment when Nimeth looks back on his life and finds that he went through it completely alone. If he died now, there would be no one in the land with such knowledge and such potential to preserve esoteric knowledge for future generations.<P>
& For a year he wandered between worlds and sought young promising individuals. When he finally found five capable young men, he founded a higher magic school and locked himself with them in his White Tower.<P>
& For five long years he taught them everything he knew and trained them in everything he could do himself. However, the study of magic is very demanding and lengthy. It is said that the young men's young blood rebelled, and one day they came to the conclusion that their time was too precious to sit forever in the musty rooms of the tower and endlessly memorize demanding texts and perform the necessary mental exercises needed to perfectly master magic and the essence of the universe. Instead, with their acquired knowledge and barely awakened supernatural abilities, they embarked on demanding rituals to quickly achieve the highest power.<P>
& When Nimeth found out, he expelled them from his tower, disgusted that they had not understood the basic essence of magic, and finally turned his back on the human world. Since then, no one has seen him.<P>
& There was something in the story that made us willing to believe it wasn't made up. The author is a man named Nithi Ebet. There is only a slight chance that he is still alive at his age, but there is a chance. The librarian knew nothing about the author, but claimed with certainty that the book was brought by a traveler from the north.<P>
[]

[10w]
The Legend of the Avalons<P>

& The origin of this nation will forever be shrouded in a web of mystery and speculation, which will become increasingly entangled with time. One of the oldest legends, originating from the province of Lantire in the kingdom of Arte, located in the north of the great continent, where the small nation of Avalons also lived, tells how one day, in times when it did not make sense to measure time, a great gate opened from nowhere, from which strange strangers emerged, who then founded their city there.<P>
& It was an educated nation, driven from their world perhaps by some catastrophe or other adversity. They brought with them much knowledge that is now long forgotten. They bred the fastest horses, wrote beautiful songs, told wonderful stories, forged the best weapons, and wielded magic like no one before them. Although they uplifted our then-barbaric world, they did not want to reveal everything they knew, for their knowledge was vast, and if they had, chaos would have reigned. However, this eventually became their undoing. The rulers of the old kingdoms, who had been fighting among themselves until then, turned against the Avalons to seize their knowledge. The powerful but peaceful nation did not want to shed blood unnecessarily, and so one day they disappeared. Perhaps they just went elsewhere, looking for a better world.<P>
& One of the rulers, however, was different. The young King Verim sought the unity of his empire, the welfare of his subjects, and the upliftment of his nation. However, he suffered from the disfavor of his neighbors, who saw only weakness in his behavior. Before their departure, the smiths from Avalon forged him a miraculous armor that made him almost invincible. It gave him immense strength and speed, gave him courage, and protected him against magic. With him at the head, every army spread fear and death in the ranks of the enemy. Thus, according to legend, the great and powerful empire of Arte was born, which began an era of peace, prosperity, and education.<P>
& The legendary armor played an important role in the protection of the young empire many times. However, after a thousand years, the old King Vlagar, a direct descendant of Verim, but himself without descendants, took it to a distant island and hid it there so that it would not fall into the hands of the unauthorized. Since then, no one has ever seen the armor, and no one has forged anything similar.<P>
<BR>
[]

[11w]
Master of Magic<P>
Basics of Magic ... 600 gold.<BR>
Advanced Knowledge of Magic ... 800 gold.<BR>
Completion of the Magic School ... 1200 gold.<BR>
<BR>
[]

[12w]
Master of Martial Arts<P>
Basic Training ... 700 gold.<BR>
<BR>
Further Training:<BR>
& Mobility ... 900 gold.<BR>
& Strength ... 800 gold.<BR>
& Dexterity ... 800 gold.<BR>
<BR>
Weapon Training ... 300 gold. <BR>
[]

[13w]
"Go and bring their talismans. From the underground bring me the Heart of the Earth, from the Windy Mountain the Hammer of the winds, from the ice caves the Water from Queen Mithel's Fountain, from the heart of the volcano the Eternal Fire, and from the Invisible City the Scroll of the Thought of Victory. When you have all this, return to me and I will tell you more."<P>

Nimeth's Words<P>
[]