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The Mad Scribe and Limbs Torn From Scholars
Tomes of Amaxathroth > Scholars |
Of all the works laid at the restless feet of Amaxathroth, the Blue Tome is that most often found in the collections of the credulous, so called for the Blue Sigil upon the covering parchment. Its prevalence is the work of the Mad Scribe, who once held the four-faced spire of Magak as her own, and drove the scholars of that murderous city into the filth and darkness beneath to hide.
The Blue Tome was to be copied from the second binding of Amaxathroth the Cursed, inked a hundred times over by the dread construction of the Mad Scribe: yellow rope, aged wood, sorcery and fifty arms torn from the finest scholars of the Prime Fane; the teeth of impkin to gnaw and sharpen quills; two hearts of gorg to beat forth blood; the nerves of lesser demons to string the parts into one; the scaly wings of a roarch to beat the whole into motion.
Such a vile screaming the sorcerous creation made as it twisted the words and scratched great vituperations upon parchment that all of Magak fled - save for the Mad Scribe, who wrestled with her creation and screamed her own potent curses. For a night and a day, none dared enter the city, such were the shrieks and growls, the booming shouts and cackling of demons, such was the dire reputation of the Mad Scribe. When all was silent once more, lesser sorcerors and priests returned in trepitude to find naught remaining of either the Mad Scribe or her sorcerous construction - save for a great hole burst through the uppermost reach of the four-faced spire, and Blue Tomes scattered about the base.
Beware the Blue Tome! Many are the tales of sorcerors slain and scribes trapped by the demon-tainted words within, but I say there is little to choose between the cursed hand of Amaxathroth, and hatred given voice by Gorg blood pumped through the stolen limbs of scholars. Heed either at risk of your life given to eternal torment by demonkind.
Since the age of the Mad Scribe, always there is one in Magak who lusts after the same heights of sorcery, one to cull the scholars who live as rats in filth and ruins beneath the feet of sorcerors. The priest Thodar of the Fane of the Undergods has taken this place these past years, callous lord to a waxen-faced flock drained of their very will and life. The gold of his coffers calls diseased and starving brigands from cave and hill to creep across the broken walls of Magak by night, and sends them below the spires and fanes as limb-thieves. With great hooks and rusty axes, the rabble hunt skulking scholars of sewer and tunnel; each morning, a bloody pile of severed limbs brings Thodar closer to the mantle of the Mad Scribe - and his doom.
[ Posted by Reason on January 28, 2007 ]
