A Path Through Time

Year 680, Central Itari

Now that the noise of nine years hence was gone, Eigengrau could properly think. None of the others would be of any help in this, and if they knew what she knew about his absence the questions would only grow. This would have to be a rather hidden affair, she supposed. Annoying, but not unexpected.

She decided to start the search through her veritable palace of memories the simplest way, by going to the first location she recalled that was related to the Raven King's death. The forgotten clearing was the first stop of many, a place that even the trees had forgotten. But like every other first stop she could have thought of, it was a map designed specifically for Eigengrau. A hedge against her nearly infinite abyss of memories, designed to jog her perfect recall. It would tell her where she needed to look.

On the ground was an arrangement of stones that at first glance seemed random or erratic. But if viewed from several hundred feet in the air, made a drawing. One that nobody would ever see, as they were covered in moss. Eigengrau carefully cleaned each rock, setting it back in place in the exact same way they were originally placed, and then flew up into the air. From the air it was plain to see what it was, now that they were all cleaned. The symbol of an ancient Elven Druidic Order, one that was long extinct, gone before Ammangoan was founded.

"The North. Everything always comes back to the North, does it not?" Eigengrau said out loud to no one.

With a brief glance, the moss returned to the stones, and she stepped away, vanishing from the point in time and space.

2140 Valgus, Far Frozen North

She was surprised she had to travel this far back in time to find the ruins of the Order still standing. She was all the way back in the bronze age and predated the earliest known Elven records. For that matter, the Raven King was still alive at this juncture, but it would do her no good to talk to him.

The ruins were practically in plain sight, not far beyond the edge of Ammangoan, and she supposed that's why they disappeared so early. The stones were nearly gone, but the trees they planted remained, and in one of them she found yet another symbol carved at exactly her eye level, and it was something far more recent.

"The Rozen Republica? Of course. Valenca, where else could he have died?" Eigengrau said with a smile. "Off I go, then. I think I know the year, too."

Ironhand 8870, Valenca, Southern Karand