Disaster on the Isles, part I

It started when the snow was melting and birds were choosing their mates.  The highest peak in the Seven Isles began fuming.  After a couple days of this, it exploded like a terrifying fireworks display.  Lava spilled out and poured down the mountainside, marching toward the water where it cooled in a deafening hiss of steam.

Luckily no one was injured during the eruption, and the rocks spit up with the force landed a safe distance from any dwellings.  However, the lava was hotter than any fire, and even getting close to it without touching the lava was enough to cause burns.  Several citizens suffered burn injuries from the lava, but luckily no critical injuries.

Cherno feels the heat!

Most citizens were willing to write off the volcanic eruption as a coincidence, a surprise act of Nature.  That is, until the flood started.  Even though the Isles had not experienced any heavy rain, the river rose and spilled over its banks, submerging trees and even the docks on the estuary.

This was no normal springtime swelling of the rivers.  The mysterious flood was like nothing anyone could ever remember happening in the Seven Isles.  While water levels rose, some citizens noticed a new waterfall in the canyon.  Could this be adding extra water to our river, causing it to flood?  And where did this waterfall come from, anyway?  It just appeared out of nowhere!

This was not here before!

Because these unprecedented disasters occurred practically one after another, it no longer seemed like a natural coincidence.  Citizens became suspicious and concerned.  And then a parchment was found.  An old, weathered, torn scrap of parchment sticking to the back cover of a book in the library.  It was totally illegible in some places, but the text that could be read ran thus:

……. In the shadow of the temple the mou ……
…. The sun arises from the grou ….
Where once ther….. green there wi… only be ash.
The mag… lies… and will not awa….
With out the ………..  again.
the praye…. Must be aligned with ……
or disast…… always…….. to contin…..

Those who live among th ………. sles
Must always ….. ….. the Shrines,
If not the shad……. Rise,
Bringing dar…… and ..eath
Betraya …. and hatre….
The shri…. Must be maint….ed

Cherno, Korinna, Willow, Fadrienne, and Cern discuss the parchment.

A few citizens gathered in the tavern to discuss the parchment and what it might mean.  They tried their best to fill in the missing letters and words, and decipher the cryptic message.  Deciding that the letters “mou-” were the beginning of the word “mouth”, as in the mouth of a cave, and with the next line mentioning the sun rising from the ground, they figured that the cave whose mouth faces the rising sun must be the “temple” mentioned in the parchment.

Furthermore, where the parchment reads “the praye…. Must be aligned with …… or disast…… always…….. to contin…..” Willow suggested that the “prayer” was a reference to the statue of an angel in the graveyard.  It appears to be in a position of prayer, and if it must be aligned with something, maybe it ought to be aligned with the rising sun?  The group gathered rope, logs to be used as rollers, and various animal companions to rotate the angel statue so that it was aligned with the rising sun and the mouth of the temple-cave.

Before...

With all their strength, and the help of Fadrienne’s horse, Cern’s reindeer, and Korinna’s goat, the group did manage to rotate the praying angel 180° so it faced east.

...After.

It was at that point that Fadrienne noticed there was no light from the lighthouse.  Everyone climbed to the top to find out why the light was not shining.

Normally, the magic beam of light generates some mild heat, that can be felt by observers standing on the platform directly beneath the light.  But now it was absolutely cold, which meant the light had shut off some time ago and no one noticed until just then.   This was the first time anyone could ever remember the lighthouse light turning off.  Its light was fueled by the magic generated by the mages in the uppermost floor of the lighthouse tower.  But now, even as they tried, the mages could not get the light started again.

To be continued.