Soothesay|Haven | Ilyamen

[Kender Bard]

The priest of Etaf, Shahin, fidgeted nervously outside of Aslan's office. His hands wrung the parchment he'd brought with him, crumbling it a little. If the ink hadn't dried in the time it took him to scribe the passage down and come over here, it would have been smudged past all legibility.

Shahin was also a native citizen of Ilyamen, an Earth-Soil elemental though he never exercised his ability beyond making his road a little smoother while walking on pilgrimage to the various little temples to Etaf scattered throughout the lands. As well as to...

...Well it was better not to think of that place. One never knew when some nosy Mind type might be listening in. No, no, had to be very careful...

Though he was a devout priest, one would have taken him for some kind of illusionist, or trumped up mystic. He wore robes of velvet violet, with silvery little stars and other fanciful symbols sewn into the hems and cuffs. It'd cost him every cent to his name, and he'd been saving up for them for a considerable amount of time. But they were his pride and joy and he felt Etaf ought to be proud to have such a dedicated priest.

The parchment in his hand decided that perhaps he should have done a little more reading in the Book of Stars and less material research. He felt somehow personally responsible for the news he was about to deliver to Aslan.

With a deep breath, he took a few steps forward, mumbling, "L-lord Aslan?"

[Devon]

Aslan looks up from his paperwork and glances at the man before him. Without batting an eye, Aslan looks as if he has seen many people come to him dressed and acting in such a manner as Shahin, but in his mind Aslan could only think of how gaudy the man looked in his robes.

Well to each there own. Aslan thought. Standing up Aslan reaches out with his right hand intended to shake the hand of the man standing in front of him. "Is there something you need sir? I am the Aslan you seek."

[Kender Bard]

Shahin stared at Aslan's outstretched hand for a few heartbeats until it registered with him what he was supposed to do. It seemed so absurd to shake a man's hand and then deliver what was essentially a death sentence. Gulping, he shook Aslan's hand with rigid automation, then unrolled his parchment, looked at it, rerolled it, cleared his throat...

"Lord Aslan, I am a priest of Etaf. I come to you with... very grave news, sir, a prophecy I have discovered that I felt must be announced. It was recently penned too, very recently. I think someone in our faith had a vision..."

He trailed off and unrolled the parchment again. "May I?"

[Devon]

Aslan sits back down after shaking the man's hand. Normally a person would give their name after shaking hands with someone, especially a leader, but Aslan figured what he had to talk about must have been important. Sitting up in his chair, Aslan leans forward resting his hands on his chin. "Go ahead sir. I am listening."

[Kender Bard]

Shahin cleared his throat again and then intoned the words of the Prophecy he'd found written in a special copy of the Book of Stars, his voice transforming from the nervous, fluttering alto into a deep, rich baritone of authority.

"A vast storm shall sweep the lands
Succeeded by a grander.
Blood is shed by gentle hands
His name evoked as slander.

The hour that His house falls
Marks the beginning of ends.
Spirits race down hallowed halls
Wreaking havoc on once-friends.

Sleepers will rise from their beds;
Spirits moaning, wailing cries;
Drinkers drawing shades of reds;
Things not meant for mortal eyes.

Rose to ash and ash to dust,
The Reaper shall have his reap.
Revenge brought to the unjust
Shall put the land back to sleep."

Scrolling the parchment, the priest looked to Aslan with a grave expression. "Sir I think thi- ah!"

Stumbling, his hand rose to hold over his heart and began to gasp for air, going very red faced all of a sudden.

[Devon]

Aslan stands up quickly, his face staying calm though his eyes can't hide the shock of what the man just told him. Still he had to worry about the man's health before his message. Shouting out for his secretary to get help, Aslan goes over to the man and helps him sit down trying to calm him and slow his panicked breathing.

[Kender Bard]

The man is easily guided into a chair, but his breath doesn't come any calmer, and he slumps down. Within a few moments, his breathing does slow, however; and stops. The priest seems to have died, a half surprised, half horrified look frozen in his death grimace.

[Devon]

Aslan sighs heavily, getting up he goes to see if his secretary had come back yet. Seeing her there with a few water elementals he shakes his head remorsefully. With a somber tone he speaks."Inform the temple of Etaf, their priest has just died." Going back into his office Aslan lays Shahin's body on the ground and checks once more to see if he is still breathing or not. Now I'll never know what his prophecy meant.

[Kender Bard]

((Eh, since nobody else will do it...))

The secretary does as ordered, and it doesn't take long before another local Etaf priest shows up. This one is a bit older, but looks well muscled. He looks down at his brethren with unspoken sorrow before gathering him up to take back to the temple. "Thank you for alerting us, Lord Aslan. Do you know what caused his death?"

[Devon]

Aslan picks up the parchment the dead priest at brought with him. Standing up as the older Etaf priest enters the room, Aslan greets him respectfully. "You are welcome sir. I don't know what caused his death. He looked so panicked and then all of a sudden he dropped dead. Before that though, he brought this and read it to me. I was hoping you could help me understand what is going on."

Aslan hands the parchment to the Etaf priest so he could read it for himself.

[Kender Bard]

The priest shifts; he has his dead comrade in his arms after all. He turns and looks at the at the parchment as it's in Aslan's hands, reading quickly. Looking flushed, he mumbled, "He shouldn't have done that. Things in the Book of Stars..."

Clearing his throat, the elder priest said, "Perhaps you should come down to the temple, m'lord?"

[Devon]

Aslan nods for a moment thinking about the time he actually had to visit the temple of Etaf in Ilyamen. "all right, I'll come down to the temple and if you'll allow me I will carry your fellow priest."

[Kender Bard]

"Thank you," the priest exhales. He didn't look forward to taking his brethren through the streets. Gently, he handed the dead priest over and led the way, walking briskly. Once at the temple, he called for a priest of Taed to tend to the dead. Once that matter had been taken care of, the elder priest escorted Aslan to a semi-private room, decorated fully in symbols of Etaf.

"First, I would like to thank you for your cooperation," the priest began. "I'm afraid that the prophecy that was delivered to you is very vague, but also quite new, which is troubling. Great prophecies worthy of being written in the Book of Stars aren't common anymore. In fact, they're quite rare, and normally they cannot mean anything good."

[Devon]

Aslan sits down and listens intently to the Etaf priest's words. Shifting uncomfortably in his chair when the priest mentions that most prophecies don't mean anything. With a troubled look on his face he asks the priest further questions. "Can you tell at all what the prophecy could mean? In your opinion should I take steps to let others know about this?"

[Kender Bard]

"I'm not sure," the priest exhaled softly as he ran his hands over the now very crumpled parchment. "I think I would advice against it, and yet, I hate the idea of leaving people in the dark. It's just that no prophecy can be perfectly interpreted, and so causing mass hysteria over a mistake would be.. terrible."

He bent his mind to the task of trying to decipher the words. "A vast storm.. Hmm... Storms can be literal but they can also mean anything en masse. Do you know of any sicknesses or massive amounts of people that have been spreading around?"