Announcements - 2010/04 - Shedding Skin

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April 2010 - Patch Page

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Original Link - http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=550:shedding-skin&catid=39:articles&Itemid=53&NavItemid=53

Shedding Skin

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When, in time, these words are the history of my people, I pray that my efforts are viewed not as betrayal or folly, but as the calculated decisions of a man seeking absolution and redemption.

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He lifted the quill from the page and paused staring into the dark corners of his room. He found solace in those dark corners now; it had not always been so. In the course of many lifetimes he drew upon his memories and questioned every action and course that he chose. Every path since first stepping in time with his dearest friend lead him to the precipice upon which he now stood. Each decision was weighed and measured in real time and then revisited over the ages to determine if it was for the best.

For Isin Dule it ceased being about right and wrong when he followed Ilservian Palacost in his search for aid. There was nobility in a decision to save a life and for a friend as dear and long-held as Ilservian there was nothing that Isin would not undertake. This, he reasoned over the long years, was the only decision he made without taking the calculated choice. It was a decision of the heart rather than the mind and the one decision that he truly regretted. Even when he left his studies as a young man where reason, temperance and careful study had bridged the vastness once filled with faith and fate he had weighed each option time and again before rationale won out and his time as a man of faith ended. Reason came with a price and his wisdom was kept closely guarded, a secret that would serve him well in the ages that followed.

Staring into the dark, Isin reflected on the tumult of the last several years and arrived at the same conclusion he had reached in every previous reflection. This course was correct and best. He turned back to the page and lowered the quill to meet the parchment.

My erstwhile companions, lost to the ravages that the madness of shadow imparts, provided me an opportunity I had long thought lost to me. It is only through their decisions that I see the eventuality now presented me; an eventuality which provides an alternative to the chaos that breeds at the edges of the Shadow. I may yet transcend the frailty of my emotions and resolve, for the countless thousands who flocked to our banners, the horrors of this curse. For this reason alone I thank Ferah and Ler Rhan for their part.

In the several years since my spire hovered over “the Caul” I have studied the work of the entity called Aerbax and learned of the misguided plans it had. There, in the work left behind, I discovered the means to redemption – a means to channel the maddening sway of chaos elsewhere. The full effect of this taint will not be removed, we are ever bound to the darkness of this world, but there is a means to alter our course and shed this skin in which we have dwelt too long.

Again he paused and lifted the quill, this time in reaction to a sound along a corridor in a distant hallway in his home. The gift he requested of Atlan’s Son had arrived. He closed his eyes and thought now.

‘Ilservian, I owe you apologies. I was not the friend you needed in the wastes; I too felt the hatred you harbored, the pain you endured and I was not the strength you needed – rather, I fostered these ills and drove you further to madness. I failed you, my friend, when I did not counsel against your calls to the darkness or did not hear the whispers that responded.

‘When I could not see you any longer as we stood outside the Lyceum at Jaline, reason replace by hubris and the wholeness of the Dark, I should have done more to call to the man I knew. My decision and path laid before me then and every night that has fallen since has been trod upon a lonely path. For the centuries since your fall I worked against your return.

‘Now, I turn to your greatest foe, the son of Atlan. Who, like I, pities what you have become chooses to provide me with a gift of a single stone – and I accept.’

“Master Dule?” speaks a voice at the entrance of his room, shaking Isin from his thoughts. Isin turns his head to see the umbral woman hovering at the portal to his room. “We have Asheron’s stone.”

“Very good.” He responds, placing the quill flat on the parchment rising from his seat as he does. He walks toward the umbral woman and the two begin the walk toward the room prepared for his final gambit.

“Master Dule?”

“Yes?”

“You have taught us much in quelling the darkness in our long allegiance to you. We have come to trust and understand how it is that you alone of his generals were able to maintain reason amidst chaos but,” the umbral woman slid before him and stopped as they reached the place where the stone shown bright blue against the darkness, “we are curious why you are so certain that we can shed the shadow and regain a life, like those of the Isparians who now make our world home. Why – why do you think this is possible?”

The response came quickly, with deepest sincerity and the most genuine smile that Isen Dule had ever possessed, “Because I have faith that it will.”

The umbral woman bowed her head and spoke in return, “…and we have faith in you.”

They stepped into the room and Isin passed his hands over the smooth surfaces and jagged edges of the stone that Asheron used to anchor his people in portal space and to maintain the essence of the Isparians. He felt the power within the stone and watched as the anchors were moved into place surrounding the stone. The smoky darkness leapt from his flesh and swirled into the stone drawn into the place between.

One by one those who followed Isin Dule stepped forward and placed their hands upon the lifestone. One by one the stone changed. One by one the followers of Isin Dule felt something they had not known since they had chosen to follow Ilservian Palacost into the wastelands – Freedom.

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Letter to the Players

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