[What follows is a full chronological retelling of the events leading up
to and during the solar eclipse of the years 426-427 A.F. The preceding
accounts have shed light on some part of the events that may partially
be repeated herein for the sake of linear telling.]


"Beware the twister of words and harbinger of doom!" came the female
voice shouting from the depths of the Mannaseh Swamp. "The coming of
darkness is nigh! Hide beneath your rocks, run from your beloved, for
the end of time is at hand!"

The hysterical ranting continued for some time along the same ominous
vein before abating, having met naught but silence or, at best, jeers.
Beautiful and mad, the young Oracle of the Mannaseh had been raving in
this fashion for many moons of late, her prophecies ranging from the
starkly apocalyptic to the bizarre.

Most had learned to simply ignore her.

But not today. Today, Alaiea Sparrow was on a mission. While hunting in
the Southern Vashnars, she had been disoriented by a multitude of
strange, disjointed images flashing across her vision: a herd of
stampeding horses, black as night, galloping wild across a moonless
plain... Two women standing upon a cliff facing away from the precipice,
and one stepping forward to take the proffered arm of a man as the other
stepped backwards to fall with a soundless scream... A shining stone; an
ancient tome; a dying tree... then the sharp sound of a slamming door,
jolting her out of her reverie.

Unsettled by her visions, she was determined to find the meaning behind
them, and why she had received them now. Her search took her to
Apollonia, the Oracle of the Mannaseh.

"Such visions are poison for your mind," Apollonia said, trembling as
she bade Alaiea to purge them from her memory. "Forget all that you have
seen. You shall be far happier than I."

Alaiea pressed her, and Apollonia grew increasingly nervous and
distressed until finally, she ordered Alaiea and her companion Ithron to
leave her hut. Reluctantly they did so, and no sooner than they had did
they hear a feminine scream, quickly cut off. Rushing back into
Apollonia's hut, they found it vacant, the young Oracle vanished into
thin air.

Though most welcomed the aural respite from her gloomy portents, some
wondered: Did the oracle's suspicious disappearance lend credence to her
foretellings? Was there something someone did not want her to say?

Some wondered. Some shivered.

Penned by my hand on the 12th of Sarapin, in the year 428 AF.

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