If the Spice is not intertwined with the ongoing Convergence, then it is undoubtedly the single most catastrophic element introduced to Korth through it.
My notes on the early history of Spice's incursion are appallingly incomplete, and so what I detail here is largely from memory - but I am confident I am able to recall the most significant of details, and for those I overlook I will refer to my allies about me.
To begin with, the Spice seemed to be little more than a pet project of Garrick (Prime, until mentioned otherwise), and in the early days of the Convergence it seemed so insignificant that it wasn't mentioned to me at first. It was made of a number of different ingreedients - known to Vampara, which perchance I should obtain at some point - that were generally difficult to come by and scattered about. At that time, if one were to consume it while immensely masterful in several skills (from memory: 1000 health, 500 spirit, 500 strength, 100 nobility, and 1000 of something else that eludes me), it would grant the drinker immortality; if unprepared, the Spice would merely mock the consumer.
While it cannot yet be wholly confirmed the two are related (with both recent events and speculations suggesting otherwise), it is worthwhile noting that our learning of this came at the time when Garrick forcefully imbued myself with the 'Cure for Mortality,' which as one would expect, made me immortal - but Garrick does not grant such boons for free, and it came at terrible cost; for while I could not die, I was eternally plagued by an incessant hunger to consume mortal souls, and furthermore, Garrick announced that should a way be found to kill me, the slayer would be granted an astonishing 777,000 SP.
Let me be clear now, though:
I am no longer immortal; killing me gains nothing. A recent mishap has cured me of the Cure, for better or worse. Furthermore, should you be seeking this immortality through the Spice - even despite its drawbacks, as I know some will - you will be gravely disappointed; for my gift of the Cure came without any involvement of the Spice. I believe, rather, that it was an act of the Convergence, stirred and driven by Garrick - the world shifted when that curse came upon me, leading me in later days to suspect my history had been altered to facilitate it.
It may be noted that I am repeatedly saying 'at that time', and this is not without reason; over time, the role and function of Spice has been changing, shifting, perhaps stirred on by the Convergence. I will come to its current acts in time.
We soon learned from Garrick of a figure known as the 'Spice Master', a figure he implied to have been at fault for the Spice and in control of it. The legend he spoke was as follows:
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- Long ago, an elven man with the face of a dragon appeared on the shores of Korth; at the same time, a disturbed young elven boy awoke from his bed in the palace of Empress Theodora in Ancient Kor'ethel City.
The disturbed child spoke first to the stranger, "Do you hear the stars singing?"
"Do you hear the blackness of the void screaming?" the stranger with a dragon face replied.
"Yes! Yes I can! What is happening! No one else but me can hear it! No one believes me," the disturbed young elf shrieked.
"I must read my head for the night," the stranger said slowly.
"I cannot let you sleep until the void sings and the stars themselves scream in terror." The disturbed boy stood defiantly.
"I shall make it so," the dragon-faced stranger said quietly.
The stranger did not resurface... for ten years, the disturbed child waited until he finally had enough of the stars' songs and the void's screams. He first ventured to Pylos where all strangers go, but did not find the stranger. He fled into the night with a flaming goblet of elven grog to light the way and came upon a flying boar; the disturbed young boy attempted to kill the boar, but the boar got away, and the boy grovelled in the dirt.
That is when one hundred purple eyes lit up a circle around him... and fifty women materialized around those purple eyes... and then the women parted and therein stood the stranger with the dragon face.
"You are the Savior of the Torrites from the Horrors of Korth. Eat upon the spice and discover your destiny," the stranger spoke.
The disturbed young boy slurped the spice down his gullet from a geyser in the ground near Asgard: immediately, the void and the stars were quiet.
The stranger asked, "May I now rest for the night?"
The boy replied, "No, there is only Silence in Korth."
The stranger nodded approvingly, "Very good. You have grown to understand the Wisdom of Korth. To reign in your inner madness... to defy an Immortal that stands before you... "
The stranger looked down at the boy and said, "Speak your name into the spice for all who will one day drink from it will know the Wisdom of Korth."
The fifty women with purple eyes chanted, "Day Star. Darkness saya day star. Guardian naki liasa day star."
The boy spoke his name into the spice.... "Master. I am your Master. You will call me only Master."
Garrick held some mostly-unspoken hatred for the Spice-Master, blaming them for some percieved falsification of Elvish history that infuriated him so (recall, now, my mentioning of this in my previous entry) - and in his wrath, he laid waste to the city of La'rolk, at the bottom of a sea, burning it with enchanted fires that burn even today, a full month after their ignition; and this rage further spilled forth, and so too was the human city of Moira punished for no deed of its own.
Later that very same day, me and my allies came upon the geyser of Spice mentioned in the above recount, and indeed it is found nearby to Asgard, the hilltop village found due east from the Holy City - beneath, in fact, within the silver mines. I shan't ramble on about irrelevant details, but ample to say that there may be some connection between the Spice and either the Guardian of the Pagoda, RyanLion, or the Library of the Pagoda itself; at minimum, I came upon a book within the Library specifically regarding the Spice, which I transcribe here:
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Ancient Notes on Spice and its Genetic Effects on Korth:
-- as studied by the Arch Spirit Father. and Regent Kenny69 of Prolix, under the tutelade of King Goshenta the Hero --
Our first discovery is in the quantity of spice. It appears that only 1 unit may be consumed at any time or else the user risks severe personal damage. However, it must be noted that each consumption of a single unit increases the percentage of genetic mutation. No change in genetic mutation results from an overdose of spice, curiously.
Next, there are certain levels of effects that the spice has dependent on the Mutation Percentage of the user's Genetic Statistics:
Mutation 0 - 9 %: Harmless, allows for a small amount of health to be converted into mana. If done in small doses, this won't damage the user to severe life-threatening illness.
Mutation 10 - 29%: The exact opposite of harmful; at this level of mutation, the spice only completely restores health.
Mutation 30 - 49 %: Even more harmless, no potential for illness, complete Nutrition & Hydration restoration and it mimics the effects of King's Juice on the working class miners.
Mutation 49 - 79 %: This level appears to operate on the basis of providing a +10 Spirit and +10 Mana Boon to the user at a cost of 25% nutrition and 25% hydration, a small price to price for such boons.
Mutation 80 - 89%: We have discovered that the spice reacts differently to different races at this same mutation level. Test subjects developed for lack of a better word: super-powers. Omnipresence, [Shiosai's note: ensuing text appears to have been intentionally destroyed.]
Mutation 90 - 99%: A new superpower is discovered at this level: Speechcraft. It appears that test subjects were able to persuade us to let them go out for a smoke break. We now have no more test subjects.
Mutation 100%: We lost all test subjects in the earlier phase, and the next seventy two batches all left in the same phase. No conclusive studies on this yet.
A final note mentions the information was shared with RyanLion the Guardian. Ever since discovering this book, the consumption of Spice along with the blood of certain races - specifically Orc and Druid, with the former being the more potent - has granted the drinker strange mutations and some of the abilities mentioned above; another artifact of the Convergence, I believe, further encouraged by the appearance of Ashanrai's mother from the Second Era (or an alternate), seeking a 'Spice-Healer' to cure the kingdom of a plague-proportion Spice addiction.
I see now that this entry is becoming horridly overlarge; I both apologise for its length and ask for your attention a little while longer, for now we come upon the titular machine, and the final entry of the Master himself.
Another person I met shortly following my return to Korth, alongside Vampara, was an Old Man whom I have still yet to learn the name of - but they are satisfied with the moniker Old Man. They were kindly at the time, and I foolishly saw them as trustworthy. Their home was a shack within the Asgard mine, conveniently next to the Spice-spring, and they feigned ignorance upon its discovery. It took no more than two days at most for them to betray us.
They constructed this strange... device, connected to the Spice-spring and perhaps fuelled by it to some extent. Garrick has been using it to further his own ends; I have no doubt that the Machine is at fault for the Convergence, opening gateways between worlds and shuffling their contents about madly. We should have shut it down - but the Old Man is (currently) the most knowledgeable in the field, and warns dire consequences should we destroy the device.
When Garrick finally revealed his intent to use the device, I sent my allies, Vampara and Reddragon, to waylay him while I obtained weaponry. By the time I arrived, the Spice-Master had been freed from their crystal prison (perhaps one of the ones being used in the machine), and (to my memory) identified themselves as Daystar Turunalindi. I cannot recall their reconcilement of fact and their legend, but I do remember what they spoke seemed satisfactory. Much was spoken, but of importance was that they designated three figures of importance pertaining to Spice - a Spice-King (Vampara, I think it was?), a Spice-Healer (myself), and a third I do not remember (Reddragon). Daystar offered to grant one wish, one wish only.
But he had a mental ability, as had I at the time, and we spoke in thoughts secretively. He indicated two things to me: one, that he knew of my true name, something hinted by both him and Garrick to be of immense power for some unclear reason; two, that he and Garrick were intertwined somehow, and that should I have killed him without a wish being granted, his power would somehow slay Garrick.
Garrick is an eternal plague upon Korth. Garrick is evil, Garrick is chaos; Garrick may very well, literally, be the source of every major conflict throughout Korth's history. I ran Daystar through with my sword.
We had all been decieved, though. Garrick had not unknowingly released the Spice-Master; no, he had done so intentionally, and in seeking his destruction, I had unwittingly aided him. He had prepared a ritual in advance, one being practiced throughout our encounter, one hinged pivotally upon my killing of Daystar. The power did not even phase Garrick; it was wholly redirected into that accursed machine, which now whines on day and night, fuelled by that power.
To say I was furious to have been decieved once again is a gross understatement. I had killed an innocent man, and only proven to further his ends. I did not sleep that night, and perhaps neither did I think; I spent the hours brooding, drinking as much Spice as I could bear, scheming and planning my own revenge. Even to this day, there is surely more Spice coursing through my veins than blood; and while my mood has cooled and my mind sharpened,
I cannot wholly say No, I say too much. Some things are not yet ready to come to light.
Regardless, this shall suffice for now. I thank you for permitting me your attention this far; for now the foundations of the Convergence are laid, I can pay greater focus to the smaller details, such as the line of those named Garrick; the history of Draeda (once I can gain knowledge of it from Vampara); the coming of Poseidonoverx; the prophecies of Garrick Felagund... there is still much to record. But for now, I have records to destroy.
- Shiosai Ike, the Resolute.
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