The ninth of Mayan, 421 A.F., started as a rather normal day for most.
Three Concordians, members of the divine order of Tarah, had gathered
after the Orphean Serenade to witness a small ritual.

Years ago, Shallam had been invaded by an army of undead, assisted by
Mhaldor. The army had succeeded in stealing a crystal decanter, which
contained divine essence from all of Shallam's patrons. Through a
necromantic ritual, the essence had become stained with the corrupted
life force of innocents sacrificed upon an unholy idol.

When all was over with, Lorielan and Tarah had been left with vials of
Their own essence, corrupted for the unknown purposes of Slith, their
power-hungry undead nemesis. Lorielan, having more experience dealing
with Slith, was able to come up with a minor ritual to cleanse Her
essence and performed it successfully. Tarah was a more heavily
afflicted; as the goddess of Harmony, having Her own fundamental balance
disturbed was a heavy, painful weight upon Her.

The two goddesses decided that Lorielan would walk Tarah through a
similar ritual as Her own. They chose the Apse, the centrepoint of the
Church. As Tarah's largest patronage, it was ideally furnished with one
of Her own shrines, as well as a divine artefact containing much power:
the Holy Codex.

A small crowd gathered with the two goddesses, along with the
Concordians Itkovian, Seelie, and Julya. The divine cautioned against
undue distractions. Tarah retrieved the obsidian vial of essence from
Her pouch and began to settle Herself.

In a very short time, however, Her concentration was disturbed. Whispers
of wrongness reached Her from Her grove, but without anything upon which
She could focus. Itkovian, Seelie, and Erisycthon made a quick trip to
the grove in Jaru. Nothing amiss could be detected, and they returned
with no information to impart.

Unbeknownst to them, the problem lay not in the grove... but beneath it.

Tarah attempted to regather Her concentration, fighting a thread of
alarm. As She paused, a small tremor swept the city, knocking everyone
off their feet. At the same moment, the observers witnessed Her body
contort in a spasm. Within Her hand, the obsidian vial shattered,
releasing a blast of corrupt power. As the air became foul, Tarah
struggled to keep control of the power. Lorielan, seeking to help,
nearly became entrapped as the stain reached out eagerly to grasp Her.
Her scream echoed through the realms.

As Lorielan recoiled and flung up a protective shield, Tarah reached out
to Her shrine for strength. That proved a mistake, however, as the power
leaped from Her one hand to the one upon the shrine, locking her grasp
to it and forming a feedback loop, using Tarah's link to drag Her stored
power out and grow from it. The shrine, at first humming and glowing
reassuringly, began to wail as the glow became shot through with a
suffocating black.

Tarah began to struggle to pull Herself free of Her shrine. Lorielan,
seeing the dilemma, demanded the shrine be taken down as quickly as
possible. As the black power built in strength, the gathered mortals
frantically tried to figure out how to take the shrine down swiftly.
Itkovian finally drew upon his power as one of the order's leadership to
dismantle the shrine.

The amplified corruption backlashed upon Tarah with the shrine's
falling. As She fell to Her knees, tendrils reached out. One wrapped
around and consumed a faithful Paladin of the Guard, who could only
scream before he died. Seeing this, Tarah braced Herself, opening wide
to the horrible force, no longer trying to control it so much as absorb
it before it harmed anyone else. In a faltering voice, Tarah begged
Lorielan to get everyone to safety. Some resisted Lorielan's order, but
Septerra and Torain, acting wisely, had their angels beckon out the
stragglers. Lorielan also caught up the Codex and fled. Thus, none were
left to witness Tarah's collapse, and the resultant unleashed power
which slew the remaining loyal guards as well as an errant mount.

The peripheral blast was felt in the Northern Nave, south of the Apse.
Riding the crest of the blast was a small cloud of amber essence. While
frantic questions flew, Lorielan revealed what She had discerned -
somehow, Tarah's grove had been destroyed, causing a disastrous
reaction. Frowning at the small cloud of essence, which hovered low and
pulsed weakly, Lorielan said that Tarah could not remain in that form
for long, and needed a physical anchor. A body was mentioned, and Julya
was the first to offer her own, but Lorielan feared that the personality
within a living creature would overwhelm Tarah in Her weakness.

Lorielan's eye fell upon the book She still held, the Codex, and an idea
came to Her. Placing the holy artefact upon the ground, She coaxed the
amber cloud to it. Slowly, the cloud of essence floated over to the
Codex, and merged with it. A safe anchor found, Lorielan gathered up the
Codex once more, and after a short discussion, decided to place it in
the Chamber of Celestial Harmony.

After Lorielan had revealed the information about the Jaruvian grove, a
contingent had split off to investigate. Aista was the first to arrive,
to find the grove and the path to it flooded, and the grove itself in
ruins. Aista, Erisycthon, and Lythea were the first to find the ghost.

In a flooded tunnel beneath the grove, the ghost of a dwarven initiate
cackled and raved. She ranted and taunted those who questioned her,
even, foolishly, Lorielan. She called herself a servant of the Lords.
Between vague answers and mad ravings, it was learned that the ghost had
been guided by a vision to abandoned tunnels beneath the north end of
Jaru. The dwarf's visions led her to a spot directly beneath the grove,
which was below the steep banks of the river. The dwarf set up an
explosion at that spot, destroying the grove above and collapsing the
river banks at that point.

From her babblings, Delphinus advanced the theory that the tunnels were
left over from the Ashtan-Shallam wars, abandoned when it proved too
difficult to dig beneath the Pachacacha for a route into Shallam.

Torain spoke to the Blackrock dwarf Grima Flameforge, who recognised the
description of a dwarf she called "an odd one". She had run off earlier
that day, muttering about visions. She had not since been seen in
Blackrock.

Returning to the Chamber of Celestial Harmony, Lorielan and the gathered
mortals discovered to their dismay that the very words within the Holy
Codex were rapidly fading. Indeed, some of its pristine, gilt-edged
pages had been rendered entirely illegible. Whether its deterioration is
due to the weakened divine essence of Tarah sheltered within it, or in
reaction to some part of the taint that it had been exposed to in the
Apse, or another reason altogether, it is clear that as the Codex fades,
the goddess it protects languishes as well.

Penned by my hand on the 18th of Mayan, in the year 421 AF.