Untold Tales RPG

Faramir sat in the archives, tapping a quill on a blank piece of paper. He'd gone over his brother's mad writings a dozen times. Left to right, right to left, upside down. He'd even singled out the first letter of every word. And when that showed nothing but gibberish, the last letter of every word. When read left to right it was simply an assortment of unrelated words or phrases, none of which made any sense.

He had a book on Quenya next to him, for reference purposes, though he'd turned to it only once. And Boromir was nowhere near as good at Quenya as he was. His brother had enough of a passing knowledge to get by and write reports - everything else was handled in the simpler Sindarin, as most of the guards and other daily reports Boromir received were fortunate enough to be written well. The oddest part was how well written and concise the script was. One might almost call it cute.

There was something he was missing. Faramir felt in his gut there was something significant about this. Because it somehow seemed familiar. He scratched at his head, closing the Quenya book, and pulling out additional scrolls. Boromir had no recollection of his nighttime activities. Part of Faramir just wanted to dismiss it as the man being overworked, as the last time they'd had visions, it had been much clearer and come to them in dreams, not like this. But his gut, and his heart, pushed him deeper and deeper into the archives, until he might very well forget that such a thing as the sun existed. He certainly lost track of the time, only stopped in his work to grab a small something to eat, and drink. Thank Eru there was a recent shipment of coffee...

At least an entire night and day passed before he hit on it. While glancing at a particularly ornate border on a book, he tilted his head, then pulled out a copy of the scribbles. He read the first letter of each word, from top to bottom.

"Twilight."

He furrowed his brow, and read the next part, "sinks. Twilight sinks."

He hurried back to his table, writing it down.

Twilight sinks beneath the waves of crashing stone. Darkness obscures the eye. Touch of burning cold.

"What in the world does that mean?"

He rubbed at his chin, and rested his face on his hand, tapping his quill. Fifteen words. Fifteen words, now why was this familiar? He got up again, walking to a section that had some older writings, from when Gondor was still young. Translations really, of older things. He didn't know from where, or when, the original writings were. He thumbed through one.

"Born again with fifteen souls before the sun." No nay, son. Not sun. He'd scribbled the correction into the margins when he was 4. He turned to the page before that.

Twilight sinks beneath the waves of crashing stone. Darkness obscures the eye. Touch of burning cold. Born again with fifteen souls before the son.

The eye could be Sauron, Faramir thought. But that was too easy. That would be what most would assume, would think right away. A red herring, and his heart tugged him from that thought. Touch of burning cold could mean the frigid north. Forodwaith or the Bay of Forochel, or most any tall mountain. It could also mean the utter south. Aragorn had once told him he'd gone so far south that the oceans froze over and strange flightless birds swam in the seas. It could also mean the resurrected Ring-wraith, but again, that seemed..entirely too easy. In most cases, the simplest explanation was usually the correct one. Unfortunately, prophesies and their ilk tended to work in an entirely different manner from common sense.

He sat down again, sipping at his coffee which had grown cold, as he pored over another manuscript. He didn't notice the cold.