Nu-Hatta:
By secret glyph: dreamsleeve transmission
Dreamsleeve: urgent, security protocols granted
Security protocols: Sphinxmoth ancestor wraithbone wards
To Chancellor Ocato, in mastery! In triumph! In absolute moral good!
Forgive my direct sending, Chancellor, and know that I do this with the respect of every ancestor in my beard, but Grandmaster Jauffre has never responded to previous efforts to warn Empire Actual of the findings of the Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree. I admit that these warnings may have been too esoteric to merit the attention they deserve.
In short, the Barrier is weakening, and I know why. Moreso, I have uncovered a conspiracy that stretches back to Dawntime and the split of Aldmeris. Empire Actual is threatened by forces of previous realities, and the Ayleids are not destroyed at all.
The moths closest to my ears and lips once served under Belharza the Bull during their corporeal stage. You know thereby the extent of my allegiance. Please give me permission to heard at the Elder Council, even if only by Ducal memo-spore.
Yours under the Red Diamond,
Nu-Hatta
Ocato:
Brother Nu-Hatta,
Yes. I recall your reports. Jauffre passed them up the channels. An interesting theory, but there was nothing there that we could act upon. Shadowy empire-spanning conspiracies? With all due respect to your eminent communicants, neither the Elder Scrolls nor the ancestor moths have ever provided us with much practical information. After the fact, yes, the prophecies always make sense then. Historians and scholars make their careers on such things.
But my business is the government of the Empire in the here and now, with a multitude of problems and dangers that are all too clear. I do not mean to be dismissive; give me something concrete, and you will see us act.
I remain,
Ocato of Firsthold, High Chancellor of the Elder Council, Imperial Battlemage, etc. etc.
Nu-Hatta:
By secret glyph: dreamsleeve transmission
Dreamsleeve: urgent, security protocols granted
Security protocols: Sphinxmoth ancestor wraithbone wards
Firsthold is too kind.
"Then will mighty Akatosh reply, wherein the petitioner must be demand full freedom! To speak in the fires of time is to render the speaker a subject of the matron Jills, those servants of the Dragon that mend minutes without volunteer. Only through freedom can true words remain untouched."
My reports shall follow. I assume we move now to scrying by the Elders?
Yours under the Red Diamond,
Nu-Hatta
Ocato:
Brother Nu-Hatta,
Yes, very well. I don't know that the full Council will find your use of the dreamsleeve justified, but I leave that to you.
Ocato
Nu-Hatta:
Members of the Elder Council,
Forgive the brash medium through which this comes to you, but read by its stamp that Ocato has given the smallest of consent. Know too that the Cult of the Ancestor-Moth submits fully to the Council in all things, as it has done since Edict 18.x2n.3E2IS, even though the allegations of such legislature as being Simulacrum Terminatus is still in review.
Scholarship on the subject of the metaphysical Tower is at an all-time high. Not since the Selective have we seen so much dangerous interest in the shezzarite power-symbols. Do any here think this an accident? That such work is not influenced by doppeldream and unlawful messaging? Do any here think this is not the work of the Tharnatos and his sleepers?
The fall of Red Tower should not be seen as the suave conquest of Cyrodiil's agencies, for we have been tricked again by the Dagonites. Though through long eras the chimerical landgods have subverted Divine rule, their protection of the First Stone should have remained as it was: the ironic protection of our enemies to our Enemy.
The Towers of the terrestrial plane have had their histories cloaked in lies and misinterpretations. That the lands they hold dominion over reverberate with troubles now in east and west should give common consent that they are reacting to an Empire-wide attention, sublunar and on dread purpose.
By the implications of my introductory comments alone, I realize that some on the Council may wish to exercise their right of admonishment or call of silence. I withdraw the spore at this time to hear these; otherwise I shall proceed.
Divayth Fyr the Psijic:
Proceed, by all means.
Though the Council may have the power to silence me, they can not enforce deafness. I am unable to confute the topic at hand in my sterile state.
Feeble and counterproductive am I in my position handed down by the Council.
Divayth Fyr
Nu-Hatta:
The beginnings of our present problem go back to the Merethic Era.
...
I hear rumblings of protest already. Please, let me assure you I shall abide by Council measure and present my findings in the accepted quadragraph form of old: metaphysical root, historical lessonates, present threat assessment, and assumption of enemy maneuvers. All Elders who wish to enter trance-state may do so now.
Aldmeris split during the Dawn, but as in all things then, these fractures enjoyed quasi-temporal amendments. Sometimes the Island of Start was with us, othertimes not or not of a whole, close as it was to spirit actual.
The Jills did not have their full powers; rather, I should say, all the mundex spirits had every power at every time amendment at every ordering, which is to say none of them could ever fully express; our world was young and so were its architect gods.
The next is known to all of us in different ways, and the impossibility of the Dawn lends all of these memories credence. I speak of the Ur-Tower, Adamantine, anon Direnni, and of its creation and purpose.
Auriel-that-is-Akatosh returned to Mundex Arena from his dominion planet, signalling all Aedra to convene at a static meeting that would last outside of aurbic time. His sleek and silver vessel became a spike into the changing earth and the glimmerwinds of its impact warned any spirit that entered aura with it would become recorded-- that by consent of presence their actions here would last of a period unassailable, and would be so whatever might come later to these spirits, even if they rejoined the aether or succumbed willingly or by
treachery to a sithite erasure. Thus could the Aedra and their cohorts truly covene in realness.
Our forebears saw the erection of Ada-mantia, Ur-Tower, and the Zero Stone. Let the Elders acknowledge this truth: every Tower bears its Stone. The impossipoint of the Convention was the first, though another bears the true title of First Stone.
Because we are finally a pantheosophic assembly, I will not dictate whether Lorkhan was judged sacred or profane or transcendent at the Convention. My brothers at the Temple of the One may call a recess after my first graph to discuss this on the tertiary sense-gradient; sametime tendril-argument is encouraged by the Moth. It is my primary intention to show the echo effect of Ada-mantia and why it will eventually trouble Emperor Actual. I can only do this by telling the story of First Stone without causal debate.
"Aad semblio impera, dela can carpio semblex."
By these words I intone the many-headed language of the Ehlnofey. The phrase-meanings can be both "as in the image of the kings become the hearts of their shadows" and "the shadows in kingly hearts are images of as", where "as" is meant in the sheathe of an ur word.
The outcome of the Convention was to leave the terrestrial sphere in their excess, for its own good, but that it should last after their departure as in the semblance of the Ada-mantia. Mundus was given its second Tower, the Red, whose First Stone was the Heart of the World, "as in the image."
Time began to last in stepped-fashion. Those spirits that remained, lesser and greater, involuntary or eventual earthbone, surrendered all definite hold on divinity. Aldmeris bore witness and built the remaining towers during the Merethic: White-Gold, Crystal-like-Law, Orichalc, Green-Sap, Walk-Brass, Snow Throat, and on and on, "aad semblio impera."
We come to the first shaper-peoples and the historical lessonates, wherein most reversed in enmity, error, or awe what already existed in both meanings at once: "Aad semblio impera, dela can carpio semblex." What happens when one reverses an inversion; moreso, does so in the living day?
We come to the point where Oblivion first troubled our new earth.
Nu-Hatta:
Council members, haste trumps ceremony. I trust that the learned may differentiate between the Tower of metaphysics and the Towers of History.
Let us begin the lessonates.
What are the Towers?
They are magical and physical echoes of the Ur-Tower, Ada-mantia. Ada-mantia was the first spike of unassailable reality in the Dawn, otherwise called the Zero Stone. The powers at Ada-mantia were able to determine through this Stone the spread of creation and their parts in it.
The powers also created Red Tower and the First Stone. This allowed the Mundus to exist without the full presence of the divine. In this way, the powers of Ada-mantia granted the Mundus a special kind of divinity, which is called NIRN, the consequence of variable fate.
After these two acts, which is commonly called the Convention, the gods left the earth.
As they were the most powerful of lesser spirits in the ages after the Convention and eager to emulate what they saw, the Aldmer began construction of their own towers. That they built more than one shows you that they were not of one mind.
The Aldmer began to split along cultural lines, on how best to spread creation and their parts in it. Each Tower that was built exemplified a separate accordance.
This sundering of purpose is the myth of the "destruction of Aldmeris." Outside of the Dawn, and even then only in the dreamtime of its landscape, there was never a terrestrial homeland of the Elves. "Old Ehlnofey" is a magical ideal of mixed memories of the Dawn.
Do not believe the written histories.
All mortal life started on the starry heart of Dawn's beauty, Tamriel.
Ocato:
If we are in haste, why are we being lectured about the metaphysical meaning of Tower in ancient Aldmeris theology? I will have my adjutant inform me if anything of substance is revealed here. I suggest the rest of the Council do likewise. We have matters of real import to discuss with the Emperor today.
Hasphat Antabolis:
I will second the Chancellor, though he needs none.
If the gentleman surrounded by moths would please move on to the present threat assessment phase of his quadragraph....
Nu-Hatta:
Before I proceed, let it be known that I abide by the Council's wish to move the quadragraph further along. I rescind memo-spore lessonate sendings IV-IX from the dreamsleeve. They are become un-present at this session.
I take my right to present two more, however, as under the Invocation of the Invisible Gate.
What are the Stones?
The Stones are magical and physical echoes of the Zero Stone, by which a Tower might focus its energy to mold creation. Oftentimes, the Stones borrowed surplus creation from Oblivion, grafting it to the terrestrial domain of its anointed Tower.
It was and is difficult to bypass Oblivion to go directly to creation's source, the Aetherius. It has been done, but not without great expenditure, mundane and otherwise. However, access to Oblivion, the Void that surrounds Mundex Arena, which we might touch every night, was child's play in comparison.
Cultivating creatia that washed into the Void from Aetherius became the rule among Stones.
The Daedric Realms were formed on much the same principle: padomaic powers using aetherial refuse to build their void-territories. The Towers built on the Mundus, since the lands around them congealed in the absence of the gods, were unable to match the capriciousness of the Lords of Misrule.
Sometimes.
The Elves were dividing; some, like the Altmer, did their best to advocate "the will of Anuiel" and so embraced the chrysalis of the Convention; others, like the Chimer, refuted all orderings and aedric measures, following their prophet to "the Stone that is not a Stone that is." The most nefarious Tower, Walk-Brass, refuted even more, refuting unto dis-creation, but we shall come to its role in the present danger to Emperor Actual in a moment. It is but a lesser pawn to the greater evil:
The Tower of White-Gold, whose Stone is Chim-el Adabal, Amulet of Kings, whose masters are returning. I speak of course of the Ayleids, for which "sometimes" was not good enough.
Ruma:
Yes, Nu-Hatta, why don't you just tell them the truth?
Or your real affiliation?
Or is this one of father's underking tactics again?
Nu-Hatta:
Hnnnnh.
What is White-Gold Tower?
Like all of the polydox constructs of the earliest Aldmer-- whatever their abnegaurbic creed-- White-Gold Tower is a conduit of creatia, aad sembia sembio, built to bring about a reversal of the congealing spiritual bleed caused by the Convention. In other words, it was a focus point for (re-)reaching the divine.
White-Gold Tower was made by the Ayleids, the Heartland High Elves that would have none to do with their isle-kind. Where the Altmer sought to focus on dracochrysalis, or keeping elder magic bound before it could change into something lesser (and act which ironically required aetherial surplus), the Ayleids harvested castaway creatia from Oblivion by entering a pact with the masters of the Void, the Princes of Misrule.
***
Gypsy Moth dustmemore insert - it should be noted here that it is always foolish to think of whole races sharing like minds. "Ayleid" is as much a metaphysical designation as it is a cultural one. Just like the earliest Chimer who orphaned themselves from the Velothi Exodites, but remain Chimer today, large numbers of Ayleids showed more interest in the immediate earthly needs of agriculture rather than the magical needs of concept-farming. This distinction becomes important later, when "Ayleid" begins to designate other, and ofttimes foreign, agencies.
***
Every dawnmaker Tower takes a myth-form. Red Tower is a volcano and its surrounds. Snow Throat a mountain whose apex is only half here. Walk-Brass is appropriately ambulatory, and (most of the time) anthropomorphic. The Aldmeri polydoxes were cosminachs, and the White-Gold project was and is no different.
Though the Ayleids gave theirs a central Spire as the imago of Ada-mantia, the whole of the polydox resembled the Wheel, with eight lesser towers forming a ring around their primus. To dismiss this mythitecture as being a mockery of the Aurbis is to ignore an important point: this same "jest" gave White-Gold Tower a power over creatia unalike any on this plane(t). It was a triumph of sympathetic megafetish, and the Start of the [Threat! To! Empire!] that brings me to this Council.
If the Ayleids made their own Wheel within the Wheel, were-web aad semblio, what would happen if they plucked its strings?
