Court of Eyes

The Court of Eyes

The oldest records dredged from the interminable depths of the ruins below speak of a bank of raised stone steles. There, the wise men and women would gather, having been taught in the old ways by their elders, and would do work under the stars atop the ancient mount. The fire at the center would burn, heaped with tinder, and whispers would spill freely from lips as if the smoke drew them out. Within that ring of ancient arches, crude basalt constructions older than writing itself, there was no seeming. No pretense. There was only ever the first goal; that which had brought all to that place, and would bring others to follow. The desire to know more.

So it is said that the Arcanum began. Whether the provenance of this ancient tablet found below lies in truth or deception has been hotly debated within its halls, but there is no countering the most base of its claims: that Galvia has always sought to learn, and some will always seek to touch the mysteries of the world.

It is a grounding as deep in the bones as the Foundry lies within the flesh. Even so, there are several schools of thought within the Arcanum. There are those who reject the limits of the world, and seek to push past them with knowledge so that they might master some part of creation. Others believe in the purity of knowledge; that all must be educated, that what is known now must not be forgotten, and that those in the future should benefit from knowledge learned today. Finally, there are those drawn to the deepest of secrets, who covet them, willing to vivisect creation so they might learn from it. It is out of these three cardinal precepts that the Arcanum lives: Temerity, Foresight, and Usurpation.

Life within the Arcanum is described best by the attitude of its inhabitants. Many of them are perfectly reasonable, if sometimes self-important and convinced of their rising star. Some of them are - charitably - eccentric in the extreme, living like rats in their laboratories as they struggle to make the next breakthrough, only escaping the court to run mad tests in the wild or the ruins. Yet more are convinced that they are basically gods, a perfect gift of intellect and superiority - all while being unable to match a single recruit of the Constabulary in combat. The people of the Arcanum are erratic, self-possessed, terrible gossips, and often hold delusions of grandeur.

But sometimes, they are right.

On nights rare as moonless skies, in the dead of a secret hour, wonders are sometimes made. Artifacts that can change a person’s face, industry, the weather itself - those are the promises that the Arcanum lives and dies by. In times of intellectual famine, they are seen as a group of mad idiots trying to make water from fire, little more than nuisances. In times of plenty, it seems as if they are the inheritors of the world itself, wise beyond mortal means, capable of miracles that others could never imagine. Those times are rare, but have a habit of staining memory. A member of the Arcanum will rarely find disrespect from any other court, even if they act a little strange.

What is said less about the times where the Arcanum erred- the better. Those who delve too deep into the forbidden are a danger to all, and their example is taboo to even speak of.