Testimony of the First Ascendant

The Testimony of the First Ascendant is a record of the first landing on the Silver Wolf Moon that most historians agree marks the transition from the Age of Exultancy to the Age of Ascendancy. It is one of the few records that survived the Destruction and the most prized and protected within the archives of the Academy at New Lafaelle.
The Testimony contains details of the events of the mission that few knew, even at the time. Details that hint at the unfettering of powers that culminated in the The Godling Wars and the Destruction over 200 years later.

The surviving recordings

Only small fragments of the recordings survive, with much deterioration, distortion, skips and static throughout. The following are the cleanest points that have been recovered by the Archivists at New Lafaelle. More await restoration.

...recovered well from the landing... not as smooth as... Second Ascendant Matzona is busy chastising the... made good time and are ready to...

The caverns near the landing site were chosen because of the Uhd traces that were... the signals even stronger here.

...not natural. The tunnels are clearly formed with some sort of intent... like the rock has been moulded, or melted. And, the lacing of the Uhd crystals through the rock are unlike... contains patterns that Matz thinks...

...breathable air in the lower...

...huge cavern filled with shallow pits... thousands of preserved... kin, but not kin. They're clearly related, but much taller. All of them laid out with some sort of lattice work of crystals connecting... confirmed they're all dead, and have been for longer than we can measure, but they could just be sleeping to look at them. Fascinating!

Detected a much higher concentration of... the more we follow the lattice work down.

...By the Preserver, it's still alive! After all this time! This could be the greatest...

Historical Details

Background

The Testimony of the First Ascendant was the personal log recorded by First Ascendant Kyria De Chola, leader of the first mission to the Silver Wolf Moon in the 2036th year of Exultancy (216 BD).
It was a personal diary that she kept at regular intervals during the mission, recorded on the crystal devices that were in common usage during the ages before the Destruction. The only known playback devices that have survived to the modern era are kept under careful guard within The Academy in New Lafaelle.

History

At the conclusion of the First Ascendancy Mission, the testimony crystals, along with other records of the mission, were held in the archives of Assembly. Other public records of the time celebrated the achievement as a shining example of progress and of the might and majesty of the Assembly at its height.
The original recordings of the mission crew, however, were all lost, and the crew members themselves were rarely seen in public again.
The Testimony of the First Ascendant Kyria is the only surviving prime record of the event. It was saved from the Destruction, and brought into Refuge by Thulaya, hero of the Cabal and the first Protector within Refuge.
Since the Returned left Refuge and founded the Protectorates around Reverence Bay, the document has been held within the Library of the Academy and remains a close guarded secret. The fear amongst many Academics, and especially those with strong ties to The Trinity, is that some interpretations of the fragmented text could lead people to question the very tenets of the faith that the Protectorates are built on.
The controversy centres around the basis of the Doctrine of Bound Aspects and the Central Heresy of Proliferation. The Church has long taught that the Godling Wars were caused by the proliferation of unbounded faith.  Their power across the Protectorates is based upon those doctrines, but the Testimony of the First Ascendant hints that the wars and Destruction itself may instead have been the result of much older, and more insidious powers.

Type

Record, Historical

Medium

Crystal, Magical

Authoring Date

217 BD

Myth

The First Ascendancy

Location

The Silver Wolf

Authors

• First Ascendant Kyria De Chola