Paradise Lost

Despite my position, my name will have little meaning once the dust has settled. Though I do not apologize for my actions, nor the actions of my colleagues, I am in no small part responsible for the state of my home. A once studious and proud land now likely lost to the sands of time. Although I wish in its final moments I could regale you with the magnificent achievements and rich culture we have fostered over the centuries, it is more pressing that you know how this beautiful seaside cove sank beneath the wave.

I was born to a well-off couple, though all who resided in our hidden away paradise were, thanks to the students of the university whose prowess in the secrets of the arcane had granted us our comfort. I remember from a young age gazing up at the college, a dark wooded manor up the cliff side and atop a grassy hill that overlooked a sheer drop down to the jagged rocks below; I would marvel at the flashes of blue and green light which filled its windows at all hours of the night, wishing for nothing more than to be one of its scholars. 

As I grew into a young man I would, like many, spend my days studying in hopes of being chosen as a student, though unlike my peers I demonstrated a certain balance of the humors. As many nights as I spent tucked away in my study pouring over aged texts to find meaning in their gibberish; I would too spend sat on the shore, my hands planted in the soft cool sand as the waves lightly lapped against the beach inching ever closer to my bear feet as I gazed about the constellations which peppered the night sky. It was during one of these nights that the idea struck me, and there in the sand, I sketched the design, a tool that would let us gaze upon the cosmos which gaze to us the secrets that founded our utopia.

For months after I pondered over the magics necessary to create such a device, combining the secrets of the arcane with the greatest feats of engineering our civilization had yet to create was no easy feat. Attempt after attempt, prototypes crumbled or fell short, every available scrap of knowledge was tried and tested yet time and time again they proved inadequate. Alas without the college's help, it was an impossibility. My pride stunted me for a time, but it was my magnum opus, so one stormy night I ascended the wooden steps that followed the cliffside up to its grand entrance, flanked by two lanterns that burned with dim candlelight. 

I was met kindly that night, a far cry from the punctilious scholars the townsfolk whispered of. Walking its grand halls dumfounded me I must admit, never in my years had I pictured the archive these pioneers of the unknown kept. I couldn’t help but linger back peaking my head into every study and closet we passed catching glimpses of grand portraits of students since passed, maps of the stars so detailed they rivaled the night sky, troves of books, and so much more. I would have given anything to run about the vault of knowledge stored within these walls. 

You must understand then, when the late dean offered me the deal I couldn’t help but take it. A spot amidst the greatest minds of our time for my blueprints and the promise to complete it for the good of the university, it was the only logical choice. So I bid my family farewell, a locked myself atop the hill with the rest of my colleagues to” pursue naught but knowledge absolute”. 

The life of a scholar was more than I could have ever dreamed, the well of arcane and mechanical comprehension that lay within the tomes and minds of college was overwhelming at times. Betwixt sleepless nights of work on my creation, I would read, at first only relevant books but soon those of subjects I had never once considered. At the time I did not yet realize my life's true purpose was not my map of the cosmos but rather my fascination with what might hide within it. As my work continued and was completed I was gifted the bell tower as my private study, the same place my orrery would be installed, and soon after where my office, as I was gifted the title of the Celestial Wandered.

As my name would suggest this is exactly what I would do, days would pass in moments as I wandered the stars from the comfort of my orrery, exploring new possibilities of the arcane, discovering connections to celestial energies far beyond the view of our telescopes. In time my catalog of revelations were refined and used like so many before them to foster advancments in our paradise. Our shores expanded as spellcraft limited the water’s reach allowing us to venture deeper into the depths of the ocean than we ever could before; Heavy stones and boulders fallen from harsh weather could be lifted with ease and fit back against the cliffside so they could never fall again. Tides could be shifted to prevent unruly waves from finding their way to our homes and storms had become a distant memory.

Yet I saw very little of these changes, cooped up within the tower peaking my head out after another moon cycle had come and went without my knowledge only to see new storefronts and monuments littering the township. Yet like my peers I cared little for the town below, they were a positive byproduct of our pursuit of naught but knowledge absolute. Though the town was not the only development I had missed, the dean, a dear friend of mine by the time had passed, and in his will, I was left to guide the school. 

In my many years of research, I had never considered myself a teacher, simply an explorer like those around me, so I gave my duties to others I deemed of reasonable mind. Selfish, yes, but I had much left to find. So again I locked myself away pulling myself from the orrery less and less, at a time soon months would pass before my guidance was needed, or my scribes’ books became full and it was time again to refine my newest epiphanies. Until, after a great many years my journey across the stars was halted, when once I pulled myself from the cosmos to find my hands wrinkled, my bones aching, I could feel myself dying.

This only emboldened my search, to expedite my voyage, but I had not the time. I could not bear but an hour of the orrery before I collapsed, in this moment I should have died. Though in my journey I had found a certain malignancy, an intelligence which hungered and from it my colleagues had devised a dark spellcraft. I awoke rejuvenated atop the operating table, my hands soft and youthful, my body limber, and next to me the corpse of a once young man, now drained of youth and cursed with an age so elderly he had died before I came to consciousness. I never bothered to ask where they found the man, nor the next, or the one after. Though soon all of my colleagues were again as I had seen them when I first entered the grand halls of our college and never again was a new scholar brought to my desk to be enrolled. In hindsight, I should not have turned a blind eye to these evils, but there was more important work to be done, and with every heinous art we used, I could feel it come closer when I again stepped into the orrery. 

With no need to abandon my travels anymore, I pursued it relentlessly coming ever closer to it. Until one day it happened. It was not like I had expected, instead, it was a blunt force, not dissimilar to an old memory of mine of a night were I rested on the sands too close to the water musing my creation to be suddenly pulled from my mind as I was hit with a wave of cool salty ocean water. In much the same way I awoke from the orrery in a sweat as a flash of lightning illuminated by study, followed quickly by the deep roar of thunder echoing from the cove. Yet the bizarre circumstance of being shunted back to consciousness had not allowed me to realize it was storming. 

I looked about for my scribes yet I could not find them, and my descent down the spiral steps of the tower proved more baffling as the college seemed all but abandoned. For nearly a half hour I combed the maze-like halls of the manor until I found my hands gathered in the grand study looking out the large window that overlooked the ocean and the jagged rocks beneath us. There just passed them I saw it, in a flash of lightning, a shadow that loomed in the deep blackish-grey clouds the arched flashes of electricity. I knew it when I first laid eyes upon it, that same malignant which had granted us our elongated lives, who had drawn us in hoping we’d find it. 

Another crash of lightning filled the darkness just beyond the faint candlelight flickering through the window. This crash was different this came from the cove. As I turned to begin toward the college’s entry I was stopped in my tracks by the cold words which escaped the mouth of my closest compatriot, the one who had devised from my exploration a way to prolong our lives. 

“They knew”

I wish more than anything now I had struck him to the ground in anger, fallen to my knees in mourning, sobbed in sadness, or rushed to the door in the hopes I could reverse the condemnation of the town. Instead, I stood there, posture upright, tone stagnant of emotion, and commanded by colleagues to gather as much of our archives as possible to bury in the depths of our bastion to insight so they may be preserved. Then walked calmly back to my study where I write this. 

The screams of the townspeople ceased but moments ago, where once the proud and studious cover city stood now lay its sunken remains. If I can leave you with any consolation, I do feel guilt, though in the moment I let my judgment cloud my humanity, and my logic my emotions. Now I will sit and wait with my thoughts as that which I have searched for all my years, the key to naught but knowledge absolute brings death to that which I once called home.