Smokestone Tablet

It’s said that in the far northern reaches of the White Wastes, there is a great tablet of dark stone, as tall as a house and as wide as a horse. The stone is said to be unbreakable and cannot be moved from where it rests in the Ruins of Morikai. The tablet has become an object of wonder and worship to people in the region, hardly stifled by the Northern Storm. For on the front of the tablet is carved two women, more real than any depiction could ever be. Two burning women in roughspun execution rags tied to pyres which are buried in the solid stone. One screams, half buried in the tablet. The other is calm, her hair seeming to be swept by a wind that doesn't affect the other woman. She faces out of the tablet, almost entirely exposed from it, aside from her wrists and lower legs which are within the tablet entirely Legend says that these women once lived and breathed, like you and I, and that they will someday wake and breathe again. In the ancient days of our great land, the continent was fractured and ruled by many kings. A usurper to the throne rose to power in the old days, a cruel man that despised the Witch Queen Markia that ruled before him. Known only as the Ice King, as his name has been crossed from history by numbers of those who despised him, he held a crusade against those that practiced magic. It’s said that the Witch Queen promised to marry him in her youth and broke her word when she fell for the dashing southern prince Nortikis. For ten years, he fumed and plotted. For ten years, he wooed an eastern princess, Lymeria. Lymeria died of illness before he could succeed to win her favor and in his soreness he vowed vengeance on Markia, who he blamed for his failure to wed a royal bride thus far. He fled the east when Lymeria’s brother caught him plotting for their army and with his great magical power, he took to the north to murder the queen. The Queen Markia was a powerful mage herself, deepening his distaste for rivals in the craft. When she died, he would not allow himself to be challenged and since her kingdom encouraged it’s people to study magic, he would destroy them. A pair of women lived together in the kingdom Oktavia of the Healing Hand and Marta the Genius. Marta became known as Merlin through the town and took the name over her own, as the people would compare her to a legend from an ancient text to note her prowess in her field. It was Oktavia, the kind and beloved healer, that the Ice King took to pyre first. The people mourned and outraged, but it was Merlin that screamed the loudest as she watched her lover burn. When her turn came to meet her fate, it’s said that her fear was absent in her eyes. Merlin was bound to the Rowan spike, unflinching as the ropes bit her skin. Beside her was tied Limerika the Bloodmonger, a Vampire that was set for execution. When the pyre was set alight, Merlin closed her eyes and whispered. A great wind blew through the town, knocking people to the ground. The fire grew in a vortex around her and Limerika screamed in terror. When the wind touched only Merlin, her skin began to turn to stone. The smoke that began to encase her froze in the air and joined her, spreading to the pyre, the sticks, the ground, and Limerika until all was turned to stone. The king descended from his seat, his shock igniting into rage as he commanded his subjects to chip the stone into gravel. Where the smoke had turned, the stone could crumble but to the king’s despair, where the stone got close to the women was where it became impossible to harm. When he ordered it moved, it burned him more to learn that even the strongest of his men couldn’t budge the tablet an inch from where it formed. They tried to dig it out, but the stone had rooted itself to the ground like a tree and the deeper they dug, the more stone they found, the kind as indestructible as the women. The people got to talking, saying that Merlin petrified herself so that she could awaken later to avenge her lady love. People would pray to the statue in secret, taking stones from the broken part where it had been flattened and minimized to make shrines in their homes. Folk would leave letters to Merlin at the foot of the tablet or leave flowers and other gifts. As the centuries passed and those that knew her died, her legacy lived on. When the townsfolk died and their descendents faded, wanderers would come upon her and see a goddess in the stone. Only poor Lumerika was forgotten, the vampire that became nothing more than a timid visage of a woman dying beside the peaceful and dignified visage of Merlin. The tablet is known by many names: The Smokestone Tablet, The Witch’s Shrine, The Witch’s Wall, The Sorceress’ Monument, Merlin’s Tomb, Merlin’s Revenge, The Halted Pyre. Legend says that Merlin will one day awaken and come down from her petrified pyre. No one is sure how this could be done, but rumours spread about an enchanted object that once belonged to Oktavia called Oktavia’s Focus. They say that this object, the only known item of Oktavia’s to remain after all this time, may awaken Merlin.