[video] I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats (un: whitewolf)

[northerndragon]

[It’s Jon, on the Queen Zanrya and dressed more like a pirate than he had been before.

He speaks carefully. It’s clear something is troubling him… but would he be speaking to the entire group if nothing was on his mind? Most of the time, he is a quiet, steady man.]

Two things you all ought to know.

Back before we left the villages, after the Beastmaster was killed, I went to the forest one day, and the foxes who lived there came to me and asked for my aid. They wanted me to help them clean a place that they held sacred, that had become polluted by the Beastmaster’s creatures. Once I had done it, they told me some things, by way of thanks.

The Beastmaster was made the way he was by a mirror, given to him by the man in white. It was part of a deal: he would be helped in his search for his son, and in exchange, he agreed to aid the traveler in his pursuits. It seemed as though the offer was made to him more than once before he accepted. But you know of how desperate he was at the loss of the boy — he did accept, in the end.

That man, the traveler in white, also made the foxes’ shrine for them, in exchange for the use of their magic in keeping the Beastmaster alive while he was changed. The foxes did not like the traveler in white — they did not like his smell. But they accepted the trade nonetheless, so they could use the shrine — they called it the Root — to store the memory and wisdom of their people, their ancestors.

I was pulled into a mirror back in the lighthouse in Ellethia. I spent days there: only a few minutes to the people in the lighthouse, but days to me. I can tell you that the shrine had something of the same feeling about it, only — not frightening.

I am no craven, but what happened to me in that mirror — I would not wish it on any of you. [His jaw tenses, and he glances off to the side.] Nearly anyone I might wish it on is already dead.

If you have any questions, ask, and I will try to answer them.

[OOC: seriously, please ask! This post really should have gone up several weeks ago, but my IRL chaos and Jon’s relatively tactiturn nature made it kind of hard to formulate, because the story is detailed. I don’t think this probably held anyone else up, yet, but since the mirrors are becoming important again, the info needs to circulate.

Editing to add: the story about what happened with the mirror in the lighthouse in Ellethia was shared here at Lily’s study group in late Jan/early Feb. I don’t mind sharing it again here though!]

Comments

un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)

[beitangmoran]

he was made with the mirror... interesting. And he chose it of his own volition.

I wonder if that is the case with all of them.

And it becomes more urgent than ever to identify this White Traveler and his strange powers.

(voice)

[reparo]

[The mirror in Elletheia makes her pause, for many reasons, a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach.]

Could I ask you to please elaborate on that? Were you attacked in the mirror? Did you feel your energy seeped out? Or was it just that you were out of time?

un: Black Prince; text

[blackscales]

Some of this I suspected: the man they call the White Wanderer was associated with the healing water. That water became the dark water under other conditions and a mirror in the volcano. That was enough to make me suspect a connection to Ellethia and the mirrors there, but equally the tale of him doing a deal with the Beastmaster who then changed to his last known state made me suspect it was the White Wanderer who made him that way. It's good to have confirmation that was done by way of a mirror too, that firms up the connection. We've learned before that the experiments done in Ellethia were to avoid death, which caused the effects around the tower itself. It does make sense that causing undeath would be something surviving people from there could do.

un: absterge

[downswing]

Does your body require ablutions?

un: white pawn; video

[chosenbylight]

[Well this is concerning, to say the least, especially given everything else going on currently. On these boats, in the middle of the ocean...]

Forgive me, but I must ask if you can give us any further information about this mirror that you encountered in Ellethia. How was it that you came to be pulled inside? How was it that you came to escape?

It is possible we may encounter another soon. I would not want another to fall victim to such a thing.

[northerndragon]

What do you mean?

[northerndragon]

[He looks somewhat dismayed at this.]

I spoke of it at the time, at Lily’s meeting in the lighthouse. But if I must, I will speak of it again.

Shards of glass were found in a room in the lighthouse, all over the floor. The people who found them could not help but piece them together, and asked some of us for our aid. When I was doing it, it was hard to think of doing anything else — and I started to forget things. Likely, the others did too. After a while, we could see a man in the mirror, and when enough of our work was done, he reached out and pulled me in.

I was there in the dark for — a long time. Too long. I was saved only when the little dragon broke the mirror.

[Speaking of the bare facts — that’s easy enough. Speaking of what happened in the mirror, something that is his alone, is harder.]

[northerndragon]

He had reason enough to choose it. A good man would suffer anything for his child.

And he did suffer. He tried to find his son in the volcano… it was why he was so burned.

[northerndragon]

Aye, I was attacked in the mirror. I thought you knew — it was not long before we found that box together.

It was an attack that did not stop. For days, I did not eat or sleep or rest. I only fought, in the dark, with broken glass under my feet. The enemy was outside of me, and in me.

[northerndragon]

Once the mirror had changed him and the foxes’ magic had protected and healed him, the Beastmaster tried to find his son in the volcano. He came out burned.

[downswing]

You speak of captivity within a mirror. A place of

( Now, how to articulate horror without compounding a man's suffering? )

disruption. Chaos takes toll of the body and heart.

Cleansing rites assist.

jon snow’s epistemological ignorance continues

[northerndragon]

It was some time ago.

What sort of cleansing? I’ve had baths.

[reparo]

Oh my god, Jon - that's awful! I'm sorry that you went through that!

voice; un: iwannahexyouup

[incantates]

As much as I'd hate to make you relive what happened in the mirror, do you think it was the same as the one shown to the Beastmaster? I assume you didn't take the one back in the lighthouse with you.

[ That would be helpful in examining the type of magic imbued into it. ]

un: ut malum pluvia | audio

[somebadnews]

[ Well, that was an unexpected confession, and any talk about mirrors gets his full attention.

Five was there when Jon was pulled into the one at the lighthouse, but he always felt like there was more to that story. That the Beastmaster was made by a mirror... that's news to him. But then Anurr's power was trapped in a mirror before, it didn't help him become Anurr, so he thought. The sliver of one Five has inside him certainly hasn't... had that effect. What does it mean? ]

Do you think the same thing would have happened to you, if the dragon hadn't broken it?

1/3

[downswing]

( He's. )

[downswing]

( Had. )

[downswing]

( Baths. )


To cleanse the spirit of haunting and residue.

cw blood etc

[northerndragon]

[He knows that, when his dead body was laid out on a table in his quarters, the Red Woman had washed it. When he woke, his hair was shorter than it had been, and wet, and his bare torso and back had been cleansed of his spilled blood.

But this…]

Back where I come from, the southroners do that from time to time, those that follow the Seven. But I am a Northman, and I follow the Old Gods, as my father did. There are few rituals. Vows, anything important, you swear before a heart tree. There is no thought of cleansing the spirit.

[It’s a fool’s game, isn’t it? The world is the world, and there are terrible things in it. He had helped the foxes, but it had only been a matter of killing a few obscene beasts.

Yet he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t come back from death feeling haunted… by himself, mayhaps, or by his failures, or by the boy he’d had to kill.]

Your people do such things?

un: workstormit | audio

[bravelyrunsaway]

You were pulled into a mirror. A mirror cursed someone called Beastmaster, who was killed in whatever village these ships left from where the lot of you all got on.

Is there anything that's happened here which isn't cursed magic at its heart?!

( the boat and this whole SEA is BAD ENOUGH and there are DEAD MERMAIDS but no now mirrors steal people and alter them and possibly do worse. )

un: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

Remind me, what happened to you within the mirror's realm?

[beitangmoran]

I do wonder, though, if our friend Anurr came to be in the same way. He is not on their side. And some of his power was trapped and kept away from him in a mirror. That alone makes me think that he might not be a great friend of this White Traveler.

My understanding of the legend of Anurr was always that it felt like he was simply to stubborn to die and just... decided not to, somehow.

[blackscales]

[ This does not really... answer exactly what each part of the equation did to the Beastmaster. Which part caused damage, and which damage that was. The Beastmaster was changed, healed, burned. He supposed the volcano is implied to have done the burning, but did it kill him? Did the mirror kill him? What was the healing protecting him from?

Given any significant proof otherwise, Wrathion is just going... assume he's right for now. Because he's like that. He is very smart and clever and this theories are never wrong.*

*Apart from when they are. ]

I wonder what, exactly, the magic of the foxes was meant to protect him from. If it simply prolonged how long he was able to navigate in the volcano, or something else. I suppose I am assuming the mirror the Beastmaster was 'given' was the one made of a pool of water in the volcano additionally, but there could be an additional one.

is that a collarbone icon, be still, my heart

[downswing]

It is not of faith.

Flesh is the house of spirit, twined. It has been

( Ah, but to choose kindness. )

contorted against itself. We give it peace.

[northerndragon]

From the way the foxes spoke, the magic was meant to protect him from what the mirror would do to him. Hyang-Won, who became the Beastmaster, had asked the traveler in white for the highest form of magic he could spare, and the traveler was not sure that Hyang-Won could survive the process without the foxes’ aid.

It had little to do with the volcano itself. The traveler said, after Hyang-Won was burned in the volcano, that he should have given his powers more time to grow.

[chosenbylight]

[Anduin is not without compassion for the horrors that the other man describes. They do not know each other very well, but in truth Jon could have simply given him a rebuff for pressing the fact.

He is grateful he did not.

Anduin's expression softens, slightly.]

I thank you for sharing that again, my friend. I do not ask such questions out of cruelty. If what I think is true, it is possible we may have another such item on board the Pariah with us. I feel that it is only right that we be cognizant of such a possibility, lest it happen to another of our company.