Obsidian

*The following scroll was found in Domus Tenebris, by an explorer seeking counsel with the Reaper. It’s origins and author are unknown at this time.*

I can only hope that someone will find this compilation of my findings before it is lost to history forever.

I take great risk in writing these words, as I am afraid I will be tortured for all of eternity if the Reaper finds out that I am sharing her secrets. I am but a servant in the Reaper’s mansion. I cannot speak these words, for my tongue has been cut from my mouth with a dull blade, and thin leather strips have been sewn into my lips to keep them from parting evermore. My goal will be to pass this text onto a traveler who dares seek counsel with the Reaper and lives through it, urging him to bring it to light.

Let me start with the basics of my findings. Scattered throughout different parts of Revaliir, explorers have found large chunks of obsidian that have been shattered. Normally this would be cause alarm, but the shards have been found in locations with no recorded volcanic activity. The material itself seems to be useful in numerous crafting methods as well as alchemical on occasion - it is as though the material itself possesses some unnatural magical properties.

Legends said that deep within Inferos, the underworld of our great land of Revaliir, a river of lava flows freely from Cupiditas, the fourth in the Circulorum Inferni. In this river, the souls of the greedy are forever tormented to push carts full of wealth and other items that they coveted in life into the lava… and some magical property of the lava causes those bits of wealth to transform into large pieces of obsidian, which the denizens of Inferos then craft into their weapons - such denizens as the Succubi and Incubi of Libidine, and the Frost Maidens of Contrito. The lava feeds into the many volcanos of Revaliir, sending the obsidian to those places.

The question then comes to be: how did this magical obsidian come to rest in locations of Revaliir nowhere near volcanoes?

The answer: portals to Inferos.

At these specific locations, it has been determined that the denizens of Inferos, such as the Reaper’s messorem, can easily travel to and from their realm. This is not to say that they cannot travel in other parts of the world, but the boundaries between Inferos and the mortal plane seem to be at their thinnest. The obsidian is left behind from the weapons these denizens carry, shards falling as they transfer between planes.

Perhaps this will lead to a way in which the Reaper herself can be defeated - after all, who wouldn’t love to stop Death in her tracks? If a mortal on the surface can find a way to harness the boundary and enter Inferos by another means, perhaps an onslaught can ensue…

Forgive me, a sound in the darkness has caused my train of thought to derail. I fear for myself, each sound in the night could be a messorem, or perhaps… the Reaper herself.

Each messorem seems to wear a vial around their neck - a vial with water from the Dolor Fluvium in it. Perhaps this is what gives them the magic necessary to tra

*The text stops abruptly here. Several droplets of what seems to be blood stain the parchment.*