The Nature of the Beast - Discovery - Conclusion - 1 - Fright

Triumph! Your foes offer one last salute before vanishing back into the ether, and the crowd whoops and cheers as if they were trying to wake the dead. The ghosts flood out of the stands and mingle among you briefly, some reaching out to shake your hands and others offering deep and respectful bows. Soon, the joyous atmosphere fades back to something a little more ceremonial and austere. The spirits dissolve into glimmering motes and flit off into the distance. Following them, you see the wisps disappear into a vast wall, which soon comes alive with light.

It's a mural. A massive record of something important to the guardians of Xibalba. Ancient text, similar to Baskar formal language but far older, takes up a great section of wallspace, and is undersigned by a complex symbol that undeniably incorporates the elemental crest of Wing. But while the text is fascinating, what surrounds it is potentially of more immediate interest.

There are pictographs of a great monster devouring a civilization aflame. Men and women and children all run in panic from the horror, only to be consumed in another's waiting maw. The hieroglyphs transition, showing a cadre of warriors wielding weapons of tremendous power, human figures with bodies partially transformed into those of beasts and gods, and fearsome creatures bound by the might of their makers all moving to do battle with the monsters. The forces arrayed against the monsters eventually succeed- albeit at great cost- in sealing them away.

But, following the pictographs, they eventually loop back upon themselves. The mural is designed in such a way that it seems as though some of the creatures that were brought to battle the monsters in turn slip loose their restraints, becoming the very things they were created to destroy... And so the cycle repeats again.

There's a story here-- a warning.

But in order to understand the full story, you will likely need to decipher the text. Fortunately, there's plenty of time to make copies of the mural's contents. Perhaps some of the local Baskar or a university specializing in ancient anthropology and linguistics may be able to help.

(You've found a mural that contains some very ancient lore. Put in a +request into the plot queue mentioning that you've found this card and contact Riesenlied and Cyre about your discovery.)