Myon History: The Mythal Crisis and Reconstruction of Myth Myon
By Lorekeeper Vaeryll Aistra in 176 AR
There are several events that lead to the failure of Myon's Mythal and the reconstruction of the Fair City. It begins during the end of the reign of Coronal Ren Engeve'te'lyn. Karathas Morathil was but a newly arrived avenger whom was barely welcomed in Myth Myon. He traveled to the Fair city often to get news and do his usual trading. Upon arriving, a Sentinel, the guard force of Myon at the time, informed him that a maddened elf named Doctor Herian Harashandal considered to be a traitor of the people was on the loose.
This Doctor had experimented with a poison on a group of a 'hundred' black archer avengers in an underdark camp. The poison had some sort of effect which addled the mind and made people see what was not real.
This information was shocking as it is unheard of to have so many avengers in one place, but the Sentinel claimed he and his other co-workers had gathered the bodies for burial. In response to this news, Karathas swore to execute this traitor as soon as his location was discovered.
Soon after this, an elven woman arrived in Myon claiming to hide from a group that this Doctor was a part of. This elven woman's existence would be kept a secret from all of Myon except the reigning Coronal at the time, Ren Engeve'te'lyn. This fact will be important later.
This group, that the woman was hiding from, was identified as 'Darkened Blade' and was a splinter cell of the Victorious Blades. For those unfamiliar with the Victorious Blades, they are also known as Eldreth Veluuthra (Victorious Blade of the People) and also sometimes as Eldreth Veluuthara. This is an extremist group of Tel'Quessir who are dedicated to the full eradication of all humans from Faerun. They view humans specifically as vermin and will do anything to succeed in their genocidal goals. It should be noted that many old noble houses in Evermeet have some sort of association with this group.
This splinter cell, the Darkened Blades, had infiltrated the Evermeet noble house of Durothil. This house is claimed to be one of the founding houses of the sun elves of Evermeet and has a grand reputation for producing excellent warriors and wizards to join in Evermeet's army. This splinter cell had managed to benefit from much of House Durothil's profits and funded a plan to eradicate the human population of Cordor. They decided to, for whatever mad and heretical reason, test their methods on their own kin.
It is noted by Coronal Morathil that it is unlikely these elves that were tested on were actually avengers. He did not see the bodies, but only went off the word of the Sentinel who approached him. Avengers of the Night Hunter are extremely rare across the land of Faerun and it is unlikely that over one hundred of these were in one place at one time in the underdark. It is believed that this account by the Sentinel is dramatically exaggerated.
It should also be noted that even these connections with House Durothil are somewhat shrouded in questions, but Coronal Morathil does confirm that he was in correspondence with the Queen of Evermeet at the time whose commentary supported these statements.
The Darkened Blades had stolen an item of unknown importance or origin from Blackstaff Tower. Blackstaff tower is a tower in Waterdeep owned by a powerful mage known to be a last descendent of a powerful moon elven noble family from Myth Drannor, House Maerdrym.
The elven woman who had arrived in Myon had stolen this item from the Darkened Blades and secreted it away to find refuge in the Fair City.
As this information was shared, there was a hunt for Darkened Blades agents throughout the island, and a number of them were killed before they were able to do much harm. The Doctor was eventually caught. While he had plotted to harm Cordor, he had not actually harmed the People and his capture was not high on Myon's priority list. Therefore, months went by before the People of Myon learned that Cordor had captured him and hid him in their jail.
Before the capture of the Doctor came to light, a city meeting was called by Coronal Ren Engeve'te'lyn. All of these events happened under the guidance of Coronal Ren. These events, coupled with lots of dissenting opinions and political drama had Myon's People displeased with her as a leader. With a large host of supporters in tow, Karathas Morathil visited the Crystal Tower (this tower is now in present day the same tower within the Great Oak) and called an election. Morathil meant to go to the city meeting to challenge her in front of the People and declare his intent.
The meeting had barely begun when the entirety of the old great tower began to shake. Chunks of stone were cut and separated from the tower in a violent attack. The roof broke down and rained upon all within the tower. Unfortunately, the meeting had been held in the council hall in the very top floor of the tower, which showered those inside.
A booming voice of a wyrm was heard as some shadow-like creatures invaded through the broken roof to attack the elves within. This dragon demanded that Myon hand over the elven woman who had been in hiding and what was stolen from the group it represented, the Darkened Blade. No one understood what was going on, or who the dragon was talking about except for Coronal Ren as, noted earlier, she was the only one who knew of the woman's existence.
People were highly confused, and eventually they were able to best the wyrm. But as the wyrm died, it spoke a curse with its dying breath. By way of foul and malicious luck, the wyrm's curse managed to damage the high elven magic that was used to create the Mythal. What kind of dragon did this, is uncertain. But it is suspected to be the work of a shadow dragon given its minions were either obscure or shades. At the same time that this attack happened, a band of orcs also gathered on the ground below the Mythal with the intent to aide the dragon in breaking the mythal's magic. This suggests that it is possible the dragon always intended on destroying the mythal and grounding the city. The orcs had brought with them large catapults which were aimed at a short distance from the floating Myon.
By this time the whole of the Fair City was quaking, and all kin still alive assumed the city was going to fall in that instant. The city was immediately evacuated to the forest and eventually it seemed that all had calmed down.
Coronal Ren Engeve'te'lyn was reported to have fallen frozen with fear in the midst of this crisis and chaos. With the city looking as if it was going to fall out of the sky, even her closest supporters had lost faith in her and none of the People listened to her words any longer. At this time, Morathil took command of the situation and led the remaining kin into war against the orcs attacking the city. The People fought waves and waves of a horde of orcs in order to make it to the ballistae and destroy them.
Once the orcs had been dealt with, Karathas gathered the People beneath the mythal once more. With everyone assembled, Karathas demanded to finally speak. Coronal Ren assumed that Karathas would take this moment to declare his intent towards election. She callously made a statement about how Karathas was about to be inappropriate with no sense of timing.
However, this was never Karathas Morathil's plan after living through all of the events that day. Instead, he spoke of the People's courage, and thanked them for all of their effort in defending their home that day.
The Mythal, and the city, did not end up immediately falling on the day of the attack. However, the attack by the dragon left it in a highly weakened, disturbed state. Avenger mage Pinlyn, who would go on to become Coronal Morathil's first Lorekeeper, began to research the mythal's status.
After the attack, Cordor announced that it had caught the Doctor responsible for the poison and was to put him on trial. During the trial, the Doctor was executed within the Cordor Court by a female avenger after extreme frustration with Cordor's often long drawn out trials. The Avenger was killed by Drad An'ash of House Rivorndir per Cordorian Law as she had killed the Doctor before the end of the trial and before a verdict was made. The avenger was buried in the Lye Astalderea, though her name has been lost.
While many of these events appeared to be very chaotic and confusing, the culmination of these events resulted in the Mythal being disturbed and corrupted. While the city did not immediately fall out of the sky, worry continued to spread for the weakened Mythal. The People of Myon in this time attempted to purchase a Wish Spell from the Archmage of the Tower and Thayvian, Yusmena. This negotiation was lead by Lorekeeper Pinlyn and despite having won the elections, Coronal Karathas kept pushing off his coronation due to these events.
The negotiations were not going well, and it looked like if Myon went through with them, then Myon would have been indebted to her. Other options were sought after as this was far from ideal for the People.
Reprieve was found shortly before Coronal Karathas coronation in that Coronal Ren then passed over an artifact known as the mythal shard along with the other artifacts passed from Coronal to Coronal. This Mythal shard was an original piece of the mythal from its creation and a solution was able to be woven around this artifact.
A plan was drafted by Lorekeeper Pinlyn that included a ritual, but unfortunately this plan was needed to be made quicker than expected. One day, suddenly, wild bursts of magic erupted all around the Fair City. It shook the city and made all arcana highly unstable and dangerous. The Portal was nearly deadly to use.
For the second time, all of the People evacuated the floating city and those who were able to, on hand, conducted the ritual Pinlyn had planned. One elf gave his life during it in order to ensure that the ritual would succeed. A conversation started between the elf and the Archmage souls stored inside the Mythal as the high magic ritual succeeded and stabilized. The souls within the Mythal that spoke were noted to have sounded whole and restored at this time. The Mythal only spoke to Karathas as far as the Coronal could recount, and what was spoken was not something he could remember. Therefore, their message has been lost to time. The male elf who sacrificed himself was on Coronal Ren's council and he was known as Shaman Wyn of the Plains and Fair City.
The People of Myon for a time believed that the bleeding of the Mythal had been sealed. Soon after though, a portal opened between the City and High Hall in Guldorand for kin to pass to and fro. The Architect, responsible for the transition of the floating city to what it is now, came to Coronal Karathas and spoke with him about the portal. Despite the People's apparent success, it so happened that Evermeet insisted on ensuring Myon will not fall again, by bringing their own mages and druids there.
The Architect organized these Evermeet arcanists in order to raise a platform to support the green city. This is when Myon changed and the portal to the high hall became what it is today.
Planned, the old stones of Myon fell to the forest chasm below. There was great forewarning of this, so all valuable history, religious artifacts, and art was preserved naturally. The Crystal Tower at the center of the city was transformed into the great oak tree and it is there that most of our history was stored.
This process would be a massive undertaking and spanned across a very long stretch of time. Elves were even escorted by some kin on foot to Guldorand in caravans before the portal was stabilized in the Great hall.
It is noted that this entire affair killed Lorekeeper Pinlyn's spirit and he soon left the island after the Mythal was mended by ritual.
Last remaining notes on this incident which ties the absurdity of it together was that after all of these events, and the city was forever changed, Mithreas came to Karathas and spoke with him. Apparently, a wizard of the Blackstaff had showed up in the city to reclaim the item that was stolen by the woman who was hiding in Myon. Mithreas had been asked by Ren to keep the item safe and hidden away. Apparently, Myon had the item all along. Mithreas just had forgotten about it due to being overworked with 'administrative paperwork'.
The residents of the Fair City were reasonably not pleased with this discovery, as people had died over it, and it has left many bitter over the ordeal. For, if not for Coronal Ren and Mithreas, the fair city may still be floating.
Once Mithreas had remembered about the item, it was then thusly handed over to the Blackstaff's people to seal it away more securely. The nature of the item is still unknown.