Exalted: Njorlona

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During their adventures the Circle have found evidence of some ancient, mysterious place called Njorlona in the area that predates even the Shogunate, though for now all they have are disparate pieces of some larger puzzle. Here is what is known, and what is guessed - what is true remains to be seen.
== The Facilities ==
From the mere second the Circle saw of the map in Ostia they could make out several points on a map of the region from before whatever disaster befell Njorlona judging by the landmass where the sea between the Grey Eye Peninsula and the other islands now lies. From this, they could read (or infer) several points marked out in the surrounding region:
Njorlona: [the centre of the Merido Trench] Status: Online
Research Facility 1: [Possibly the Mirrored Hall] Status: Offline
Research Facility 2: [Somewhere offshore between Kanilah and Jheroth] Status: Offline
Communication Facility 1: Ostia Status: Offline
Communication Facility 2: [Somewhere in the north of the Grey Eye Peninsula, in the Pelith territories] Status: Offline
Containment Facility 1: [Location Unknown] [Status Unknown]
Containment Facility 2: [Location Unknown] [Status Unknown]
Containment Facility 3: : Marrull Vaar Status: Online
Three unknown facilities inland, a facility on the border with Zhaojun and a facility in the middle of the Grey Eye Peninsula [Status: Offline]
A facility deep in the jungle north of the border with Anaathalay and a facility far into the Bordermarches to the Southwest [Status: Online]
== Communication Facility 1: Ostia ==
The walls of the City of Ostia are very strangely shaped - three layers of concentric circles, with entrances at the North, South, East and West in the outer layer, and alternating entrances in the second and third. Each of these walls is made of the mysterious white stone that features in ruins around the area (see below) and seem to have been in place long before the settlement of Ostia itself formed around them. The Circle concluded that this place must have been some kind of relay for transmitting signals of essence across great distances, from one place to another, but in the centuries since had been stripped down to bare stone and re-inhabited by later generations.
In the central building - now the throne room of the Ostian monarchy - there is a plinth holding a slab of white marble and white jade, designed to have essence flowing through it and be activated by some kind of key. Happening to have the latter and being able to provide the former, the Circle activated the stand, just for a brief moment, which revealed the map at the top of the page and the facilities mentioned above.
== The Great Road and the White Stones ==
A certain kind of stone - white, extremely hard, and of unclear origin - features in a lot of ancient ruins in the Wreckers Coast. Both the great Eastern Road on the mainland and the Ocean Road of Jheroth are made of this stone, as are the sea-wall of Nulbaram, the Watchtower (see below) and the walls of Ostia. Some rubble of this stone was made into the monument the people of the Windland built to honour the fallen Knights who had protected them.
== The Watchtowers ==
On the island of Iliona stands a tower far too tall to be accessible by climbing, or indeed any access other than flight, though investigation by Reeds seemed to indicate that some kind of cable-car may have once connected the tower to another structure. Reeds posited the existence of three other towers like it that would have stood at opposite corners in a perimeter around the central structure that each connected to. There is nothing now where the other three presumably would have stood, however... at least, above water. Now, the tower is visited by none save generations of nesting seabirds, and has been for many years before the Circle's arrival. That is, except one.
=== Trenshe ===
Among the survivors of the sacking of the Windlands, an old woman told the Circle of the time as a young girl, some 50 years ago or so, when she met a winged reptilian man who had moved into the tower and was exploring the area. When she demanded to know who or what he was, he told her (perhaps jokingly) "I'm a Dragon!", so that is what she remembered him as.
Little is known of why the "dragon", who according to the name written inside the cover of the book he kept close to his heart was named Trenshe, was doing in the Wreckers Coast, but during his time there he accumulated a small collection of bits and pieces of old technology and scrap metal he had seemingly found in the surrounding area (see The Key below), until at some point he was mortally wounded, and his remains have lain in a corner of the tower ever since.
== The Explosion ==
During the events of the Bronze Tide, Tokumei happened to look out across the bay, where a deep blue hole named the Merido Trench now lies. With the aid of supernaturally augmented sight, she could see large objects, like the ruins of some great structure perhaps, lying at the bottom still pulsing with some kind of afterglow of essence.
Looking out across the same area, the others posited that the surrounding islands - Iliona, Baruntulga and Kanilah - also showed signs of having been shaped in the past by some great shockwave.
Finally, the ancient map on the plinth in Ostia (see image at top of page) depicts a combined landmass connecting Baruntulga, Kanilah and the Grey Eye Peninsula and encompassing everything inbetween. This, of course, was during the First Age, but as far back as living memory goes, the Cinder Isles have indeed been islands.
All of these signs seem to point to the same conclusion - at some point in the past a cataclysmic explosion destroyed Njorlona. But what caused it?
=== The Silver Wolves ===
As Nida Malek of the Knights of the Windland told the tale, as a young man he took shelter from a storm one night in a cave in the hills of Iliona, where he had a dream of running alongside a group of troops led by a pack of giant Silver Wolves. They seemed about to make it over the crest of the hill when a blinding flash of light filled the sky. In the morning Nida explored the rest of the cave, and at the back below a hole in the roof he found the skeletal remains of a man holding the relic bow A Flight of Vesper Gulls, an artefact of the Shogunate era seeminly made for mortal servants of essence users.
In a disused guildhall in Ostia a long stone mural tells the tale of the history of Ostia. In its earliest days, before the great contagion and the Balorian Crusade, the murals depict a great city of old being destroyed by giant wolves. Local historians might write it off as some kind of artistic symbolism, but if Nida's dream did indeed take place...
== The Key ==
Amongst the bits and pieces Trenshe accumulated was a small rectangle of metal, designed seemingly to be held and slotted into some kind of keyhole. On the side of this "key", almost scoured off by layers of corrosion, is where Hephastia found the first instance of the word N J O R L O N A, though at the time the Circle didn't grasp what - or where - Njorlona was. It turned out that one place the key could be used was the plinth in Ostia, which turned out to be some kind of display for reading data about the surrounding area. Could this key unlock other secrets of Njorlona elsewhere in the area?
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