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Halden Vulgar peruses the documents that lay scattered on his desk. Hundreds of pages waited, copied from the originals in the Great Library of Althares and sent to him through an intricate network, finally arriving at the Milandisian Museum of Art and Antiquity. He sighs. I don't see how they expect me to find anything in all this,he mutters to himself. Someone obviously went out of their way to purge as much mention of this place as they could... Halden picks up one of the pages, and reads: "Buried deep in the Corlathian mountains... <damaged> ... civil relations with the local Gar ... <damaged>." The next one is not much better: "Once long, long ago, far away on the edge of the Blessed Lands, there was a great fortress built to keep ... <damaged>."
His hands stray along the papers, until slowly coming to rest on a pair. Thoughtfully, he pulls them out of their sheaf. The first one is written in stark, solid letters, in an old but common dialect of Ancient Altharin and very brief: "The Vault is buried for a reason. Its secrets can remain there beyond the end of time itself. No good can come from Larissa's Tear, nor aught else that may be found within." The second is an alchemical formula involving some sort of venom. The text is an archaic form of Ancient Altharin, clearly from around the time of the First Imperium. Most of the text was damaged beyond repair, but one phrase near the bottom catches Halden's attention: "With these ingredients and techniques we were able to imbue our tools and the weapons of our defenders with Larissa's kiss. We are able to literally hold our own Fate in our hands and work wonders." Halden frowns, then sets the papers to the side, before methodically returning to searching for more information on the Vault of Larissa's Lament.
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Tony Nijssen
Causer of Chaos. Nobody Important.
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