EQ2 FURNITURE



Total items rewarded from Lore and Legend: Maedjinn: 2
Books
Of Mice and Maedjinn
This item can be placed on the floor in any house type.

This is a mastery tome. Use the knowledge contained within to gain a basic understanding of the tactics to use against the chosen foe.

NO-TRADE

Quest reward from [120] Lore and Legend: Maedjinn (Lore and Legend), started by examining maedjinn parts.

Discovered on 29 Nov 2023 at 17:04:51 PST.
Of Mice and Maedjinn
Foreword:

I don't recall much from before. In fact, none of us do, so it's been necessary to compare memories with one another to assemble an understanding of our past, while we can. This is our story as best we can tell. It is the story of our beginning, our divergence, and our ending.
It starts with a sudden awareness, surrounded by indescribable music, not from a single source but from all around. It is everything and everywhere joining in metaphysical song. Understanding of the moment is beyond our reach, due to our infancy, (1) but even without opening our eyes we can sense vibrations colliding and reverberating off one another, giving birth to others like us.
1) And by design. Let's not delude ourselves on that.
We are welcomed by others, those formed before us, and we acknowledge one another. We need not be coddled or protected, unlike the youth of other races, (2) nor do we require lessons to know what is expected of us. It is within us, a force that compels us to carry out tasks and do what is necessary as part of the Zakir Rish. We work together towards our shared goals, bringing glory and honor to the Sovereign. (3)
2) Evidence to the contrary. Look at how we turned out.

3) This makes it sound noble or harmonious. But they weren't really our shared goals now, were they? Maybe if we had the choice, or even the knowledge of choice, they might have been.
Our world was one of vibrant colors, reflected, and refracted, dominated by materials lustrous and malleable. We had known nothing different or even the possibility of a difference. That is, until we were selected to travel elsewhere, to the lands beyond, where the apostates cowered from our Sovereign. We departed our Aether realm arriving upon an island within Stratos, the Plane of Sky.
We were surprised to feel the land teeter under us. Its celestial moorings were decaying quickly and would soon suffer the same fate as others before it. We broke the forged chains that had temporarily secured it to other islands in the floating archipelago, letting the natural course take it, and us along with it. (4)

4) No part of this is natural though, is it? Deities, Sovereigns, chattel, machinations, and consequences. What of that seems natural?
The Plane of Sky seemingly dissolved around us as we shuddered and jostled into the Prime Plane. The air was different; ungoverned and chaotic. And the horizon was dull with only a few colors on display. If we could have pondered it, we might have wondered why subjects would have chosen a life in a drab and distressing locale as the Overrealm, when the Sovereign's realm offered so much more. Instead, we did what we were sent to do; we attacked.
We laid waste to the land and lashed out at any and all resistance, as we had been commanded. We felt an unquenchable hunger for battle pulsating through our veins, pushing us harder, even as success became more imminent. The local hooluk population fought back, some of them valiantly, but they were outmatched and ill prepared. (5)

5) Or so we thought.
Their defense tactics were unorganized and crude, mostly consisting of dodging and running, or distracting us with piercing screams. So, when a small group of their mages appeared behind us, near the center of our island-turned-troop-transport, we instinctively advanced towards them. We were going to strike them down mercilessly, no matter how brave they had been to face us. Then they flew off, as fast as they had come. Leaving us surprised at their sudden show of cowardice.
Of course, that's not really what had caused them to run off. No, they knew that they had just left a powerfully destructive arcane item in the middle of our island. They ignited it with an incendiary spell fired from above before we could realize what they had done. (6) The resulting explosion shattered the island, and the concussive blast flung most of us deeper into the woods of Splendor Sky Aerie.

6) We shouldn't be so quick to dismiss other beings, huh?
Most of us had no way of knowing the fate of the island or our mission, as we had lost consciousness. We would learn later, of course, that only a small segment of the island remained, with a kaleidoscopic scar in the planar fabric at its tilted apex. The rest of the island and the creatures that had been upon it, had plummeted to the world below, the Undercloud, no doubt breaking into smaller crumbs along the way.
We learned about it from those who had found us and showed us mercy, a small band of hooluks. They had taken us back to their huts in the Root Warrens, despite their fears, despite being our foes. They nursed our wounds and provided us with food and drink. It was a remarkable show of compassion, and we were confused by it. (7)

7) Confusion was such a new sensation!
As we regained our strength, we began to question their motives. Were we to be hostages or to be forced into servitude? No. They spoke of their history, of their culture, and of course, what they had known of their peoples' suffering under the Sovereign's reign. They treated us as individuals. Something we had never been before, as we never had a sense of self before.
During this time, although we had healed from the battle, we were feeling weaker and our skin, once lustrous and healthy, had begun growing dull and pitted. We were showing signs of corrosion! None of the hooluk potions or salves helped, which troubled all of us.
Whatever we suffered from, it would require our return to the Plane of Sky. Something we had assumed would happen inevitably. Surely, the Sovereign will send other forces to save us. (8)

8) Yes, we were that delusional.
We began questioning our assumption as the days dragged on. We found ourselves in disagreement over what to do. That too was something new for us. Discord was new and tempers flared as a result. It was obvious to our caregivers we lacked the skills to productively navigate this emotional territory. They encouraged us to talk to one another, to share our experiences, and our individual knowledge with one another.
This is how we came to suspect the Sovereign hadn't sent us to this realm to capture the aviaks, but instead as an experiment of our capabilities as an attack force upon the Prime Plane. (9) Our corrosion was an unforeseen side effect of being cut off from either the Sovereign's reach or from our birth plane, as was our new sprung individuality. We were no longer the drones we had been created to be!
9) This would be confirmed later, after a new wave of maedjinn, shiny and determined, came through the magically stabilized aether breach. Not that you survived to see it. They had mirror shards that helped to keep the entire contingent linked to the Plane of Sky!
We have chosen a new name for ourselves, the Tanhar. A new name to reflect the new people we are. The corrosion has begun to take its toll, faster and more debilitating for some than others. None of us know how long we will last, but we would rather perish adding the song of our unshackled minds as Tanhar to the universe, than be limited by the synchronized song of the maedjinn. Their tune is unmelodious to the universe. (10)
10) That's an oddly poetic way to end this collection of memories, don't you think?
<blank page>
I hope you don't mind the notes I added to the history you'd been recording. After you succumbed to the corrosion, I was a bit lost. I found your records and thought it might help to give it a bit of an edit.
Honestly, it felt like you were doing something to memorialize us, to tell our story to someone. I get it. It would be easy for the Planes to ignore us, to have our short existence lost to the vastness of the Overrealm, but you didn't want that. And you didn't want the maedjinn dismissed as the song-wrought army for the Djinn Sovereign's invasion plans. Now maybe some others will know that they are exactly that, but they can be freed of it, too. Unfortunately, the cost is high.
Maybe one of us will survive to tell the tale, but if not, these pages will have to do.
Weapons
Trophy: Songwrought Albalatin Blade
This item can be placed on the wall in any house type.

NO-TRADE

Quest reward from [120] Lore and Legend: Maedjinn (Lore and Legend), started by examining maedjinn parts.

Discovered on 29 Nov 2023 at 17:04:51 PST.