The Cataloguer’s Notes

<b>The Empyrean Observatory holds the key.</> I write it down, and I write it again, so I won’t forget. At the edge of the Well, I can hear the light so clearly. It would be so easy to leap… An ocean of wisdom. It would be so easy to drown… But I heed its warning. It will wait for me. Wait, until I’m safe to cross. <i>The Empyrean Observatory holds the key.</>

<b>The doors to the Empyrean Observatory were sealed shut.</> I banged and scratched until my fingers bled. A waste of time and tears. I will no longer invite doubt. If others had these secrets deciphered, so can I. And where they failed my guide, I will not. The Knights who sealed its cage. The Vikings who watched in silence. The Fae who defiled the sublime. And now <i>you</> who reads in blissful absence. How many cycles before my light knows peace?

Cunning, these Empyrean Fae. <b>Their secrets sealed behind frivolous challenges. What could they glean from a proof of agility?</> Perhaps the boldness to aim higher? The perseverance to reach it? I have nothing to prove, but if I must, I will. For my guide, for myself. I’m too close to seeing. To <i>knowing</>. <b>The Empyrean Observatory holds the key.</> And the light, it waits in anguish.

<b>An Empyrean Favour!</> A blasphemy to even think. To need their aid, their <i>boon</>! But I will not succumb to arrogance. <i>No.</> Not like them, not like the others. The Bound fester and prey, but I can be quiet; I can be small. <i>They</> made me so. But now, I use it. I’ll seize this ‘favour’ of the Fae. <b>And its magick will protect me as I dive into the unknown.</>

I feel no different. Not enlightened nor blessed by this magick of the Empyrean. How could anything compare, now that I know the feeling of the light?... <b>Still, I mustn’t linger, or this Favour might go to waste.</> I am no hero, but it chose me, and me alone. <i>Me</>—the one who observes, who sees what others can’t—or won’t. I am the cataloguer. And if I cannot save it, I will make it known. ‘Sheliak’, I named it. For all that was taken, for all that could have been. For all that we might still become.