Gravens

Ravens haven't been seen in a corporeal sense in nearly two millennia, kid. Sometimes, I see something black and feathered with iridescent wings dive through fresh grave soil, only to fly back out with one of the buried items. This only happens once all mourners of the deceased have vacated the Ebon Hall's graveyard, and only I remain. I think it is the Mistress of Memories' way of letting me know that the souls I put to rest here have found their way home. Reminiscence clear your clouded skies.

— Yoras Korraka

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The musty, old tome you exhumed from the archives smelled faintly of aged paper, spilled coffee, and scorched incense. Spiderwebs clung to your fingers as you pried the cover open and the book exhaled centuries worth of dust across the table. The first, yellowed page was blank, but flipping it to the next revealed an ornate and flowing Draconic script penned in a red ink so dark it could have been mistaken as dried blood. It simply read: “Where the Ravens Roam”. There looks to have once been an author's name scribed in a similar font and color near the bottom, though it has since been blotted by black ink, rendering it unreadable.

As you turned to the second page, a distant avian cry echoed through the skies above the Ebon Hall and down the open stairwell to the cellar. Candle and lantern alike flickered all around the Hall's basement, where both you and its relatively small archive rested. Unperturbed, you continued to read. Many of the opening pages were simply records of those interred within the graveyard above. One read as: Arcanist Johannis Geofell, 1874-1957—“Perhaps, I shall see Mother's wonderful Tapestry after all”. Another as: Delphine Hylas, 1826-1868—“Don't let those bastards give away my cast iron pans to that hack smith”.

Howling winds rushed down the stairwell and the lights within the archive winked out, drowning you in darkness and wisps of smoke. Matchboxes were only ever kept upstairs within the Ebon Hall proper, far away from the literary crypt. Annoyed that your study of the ancient tome was cut short, you decide it would be best to retrieve one to relight the extinguished and smoldering candles. You make your way to the beam of moonlight at the foot of the stairs and ascend into the graveyard beyond. As you climbed to the final step, a familiar caw of a bird rang out from above in the misty night.

Memories held close mean oh! so little,
when we leave them buried 'neath the stone.
Clouded skies ruin what remains oh! so brittle,
when taint of rain soaks through bone.

Visit their grave and ponder what lies beyond
and fuel the corvid's iridescent pyre.
Fret not, for their treasured souls respond
to Raven's cry—our Matron's choice in choir!

Free, then, are they to give their mortal coils
to the beaks of Her children, a holy tithe.
Up and away, through the tear-dampened soils,
their essence is carried, to be made whole and blithe.

Swarming the air above looked to be a mass of black feathers and seemingly endless wings. Their calls were deafening, though you stood where you were, stupefied at the spectacle just below the clouds. A murder of ravens, it was; a murder of ravens meant for that very graveyard. One by one, they began to dive bomb all around you, plunging into new and old graves alike. In mere moments, they emerged from them, their wings covered in an opalescent sheen. Each of their beaks carried a memento, or the spectre of one, and they all convened in the swarm of black in the sky. And, as fast as they had appeared, they vanished into the mists of the early night, leaving not so much as a scratch on the graves. You rubbed at your eyes as if waking from an odd dream, finally finding strength in your legs once more. Perhaps you had stayed up late to study just one too many times, and you were in dire need of rest.