Oblong red-orange sard medallion

An oblong red-orange sard medallion was a prize auctioned off at the Ebon Gate festival in 2006 in the cursed town of Velathae. It has the ability to give its wearer knowledge of the spell Preservation, regardless of profession. It also had a loresong Analyze This section has not been added yet; please add to it now! Additional Information It was won by Railien Blightstruck in the token portion of the auction. It belonged to a human whose father was a priest of Lorminstra. Show A single pale band winds its way unevenly through the center of the sard medallion, separating mottled orange stone from that of a deeper, more solid red. The center of the flattened oval has been hollowed out and set with a round of gold that may have once been a coin of some sort, but is now worn smooth with age. A leather cord is wound thrice about the medallion along its short axis and knotted at either side. Loresong Loresong Reaction A faint, metallic chime catches your ears and resonates through your mind. As it repeats, your vision clouds and upon the misty veil that obscures your sight, a new scene is born... Drawn curtains darken the already small bedchamber, making it seem smaller still. An old man lies upon the bed there, half-covered by the faded quilts piled about his wasted form. He is near enough to smell the illness on his breath, close enough to touch. Your vision shifts and blurs with tears and a phantom pain grips your heart. Your grief is not quite your own, but belongs instead to the one whose eyes you are using to see. The old man's breath rattles in his chest, and he speaks. "My son," he rasps as his rheumy eyes peer up at you. "I will not live out the winter. I will not be here when you return from this march..." His voice fades, trailing off in a bout of wet coughing. A hand moves into your vision, strong and callused. "She will greet you with open arms, father," you hear, and the deep voice seems to come from your own lips. "I only hope I will not be hurrying to your side through the Gate, before the spring comes." Papery skin brushes your own, though sensed as from a great distance. Cool stone is pressed into your hand by crabbed and bony fingers. "It will protect you," the old man whispers, closing your fingers around the smooth round of sard with his own shaking, misshapen hands. "Wear it by your heart. Remember your training, before you took up the sword... promise me." The hand, your own and yet not yours, tightens about the medallion. "I promise," you hear yourself say, but the words are far away and growing farther. The dim room grows dark and dissolves into a jumble of dull colors. You blink once, twice, and your true sight reasserts itself. XXX sings something softly in Guildspeak that you don't understand. The red-orange sard medallion seems to respond to the magic of XXX's song. XXX's head twitches to the side. The ruddy stone medallion resonates with the sound of your voice, and a faint haze of light flickers in your mind's eye. The flame of a single candle stub dances on its nigh-exhausted wick. The air you breathe has turned crisp and biting in the space of a heartbeat. Dim noises fill the air about you -- the steady ring of hammers on metal, the laughter of men and women that holds an edge of tension. All this and more, the bustle of a waking camp, is muffled by layers of lazily rustling cloth. The ground is hard and cold beneath your knees, for kneeling you find yourself, though you are not truly yourself. Your eyes are not closed, but captured instead by the dancing of that single, solitary candle flame. Unbidden, a prayer springs to the lips that are not yours. "Goddess of my father," that deep voice murmurs, "watch over the son of your priest. As you let pass the soul that flew from his deathbed, turn mine back should I fall today in the field." Hands lift and pull a long cord over your head, then tuck the medallion beneath layers of mail and quilted padding close to your heart. Faint emotions grip you then, fear and anticipation foremost among them. Weaving between these is the thread of a promise remember. A sharp query from without turns your head and you stand. A hand pushes aside the tent flap, and the light of growing dawn breaks apart your vision, rearranging and resettling into the familiarity of your previous surroundings. XXX sings something softly in Guildspeak that you don't understand. The red-orange sard medallion seems to respond to the magic of XXX's song. XXX's grip tightens on the red-orange sard medallion and it briefly takes on a ruddy gleam. The vision comes more quickly now, slamming into your mind with the force of a blow. A sea of armored forms heaves around you as the tide of battle ebbs and flows. A spiked flail speeds for your face, intercepted by your hastily raised shield. A dull shock vibrates down your arm, but the sensation is almost incidental. Your blade flashes out and drives point first between plates of protective armor. The faceless foe grunts and stumbles to the ground but you do not pause, turning instead to lash out at the next. There is always another. Distant pain blossoms where the weapons of the enemy break through your guard, but none are mortal. A growing ache forms between your shoulder blades and pounds in a band around your skull. Slowly, the roar and shuffle of the battle-mad gives way to the cries of the wounded and the groans of the dying, and you find yourself on your knees and gasping for breath. You can hear the clamor of fighting still, but it comes from a ways off. Your view shifts to a broken form before you. A heartfelt moan of pain and recognition escapes you, but it is not your voice you hear. The sard medallion burns with phantom heat near your heart, and far beyond the bounds of the vision you can just feel an echo of that heat in your hand. "Remember..." an aged voice rasps. "Remember," a deep voice murmurs, gauntleted hands tracing a pattern over the lifeless corpse before you. An intricate web of white light coalesces, completely obscuring the body of the fallen soldier with its brilliant glow. The luminescence grows to encompass the entirety of your sight. Abruptly, it fades, taking with it the images of the past and depositing you firmly within the confines of your own senses. XXX sings something softly in Guildspeak that you don't understand. The red-orange sard medallion seems to respond to the magic of XXX's song. XXX sways suddenly, giving a single wet cough, and a drop of blood glistens on his lower lip. A spot of light blooms outward from the sard medallion in your hand, capturing your sight and transforming it. As it subsides, it again takes the form of a luminescent web, but the corpse it surrounds this time is recognizably different. The battlefield, however, remains the same as previously experienced. The sun is marginally higher in the hazy sky, but the air is still crisp, the ground still hard beneath the debris of battle. The man whose life you are experiencing is dangerously exhausted, but still he strives. Energy that only a short time ago was spent in the throes of conquest is now channeled to preserve the bodies of his comrades in hopes of revival. Your tired host is already moving as the threads of pale light sink into this latest brother-in-arms. Another follows, and another, each carefully preserved with memory sparked by the sard medallion and the dregs of magic long unused. Behind and at a distance comes the sound of rustling and soft murmuring, followed by gasps of lungs desperate for air. The fighting is far away, and now the fallen whose souls remain can be rescued. Forward, another soul webbed to its broken body. Rest, and forward again. This crumpled form that lies so contorted is not an ally, but the body of an enemy slain in battle. Gauntleted hands hesitate only a moment before beginning the quiet chant and careful gestures of the preservation spell. The body bursts into motion, however, before the gesture can be completed. A hand flashes upward, bearing a wicked poignard, and the deep voice that issues from your lips turns into a bubbling cry. Agony rips through your ribcage and you stare wide-eyed into the fiercely triumphant gaze of the enemy soldier below you. Your body collapses even as your foe's fingers slip from the knife high in the side of your chest. Something breaks within, and warm wetness flows over your lips. The taste of blood jolts you from the vision. Your darkening sight shatters and reforms, dropping your consciousness roughly back into the present, but the pain of that long-ago death blow lingers. Behind the Scenes The Maker GM Gyres "That's one's vying with the light/dark bracer pair for my favorite of the loresongs I wrote for EG." -Gyres, 10/29/2006 Ebon Gate Topic, Simu Forum

Oblong red-orange sard medallion Information Type Mechanical Item Classification Accessory Item(s) Applied to Jewelry Alterable Light/Deep Original Release Venue Velathae Original Release Year 2009 Legendary Yes