The Importance of Being Patient

[Zarquon]

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!"
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Preamble

The Importance of Being Patient is a series of mini-events organized for members of House Blackstone that revolve around life as a Practitioner of the Dark Arts; secret lore aplenty, hidden messages, obscured references and the hidden to be revealed. After all, one of the fun part about being a scholarly Mage, Warlock or Shadow Priest is actually getting to be scholarly in the first place, aye? Not the contemporary scholars where you type words into search engines and receive thousands of words of facts, but rather, research in the medieval terms. Hence, this Storyline hopes to instil a modicum of this sense of frustration that Practitioners of the Dark Arts face as they scour the vast libraries of mundane texts for just the right knowledge, search the world of Azeroth for just the right reagents, and hunt till the ends of the world for just the right truths.

The study of the Dark Arts is hardly an exact science, and there are few such practitioners who do not endow their research in flowery, cryptic verses or hide it in meticulously crafted wards. Rituals of blood and death, oft foci for the abominable Arts that the grasping wield, are by their very nature things to be kept secret. Serving as an intricate part of a character's progression, this Storyline revolves around the ferreting of these secrets from the mind of the dead and gone, garnering from their legacies power beyond mortal ken.

The metaphorical terms are baffling, the entire text occasionally missing whole words, and sometimes it seems like a snake biting its tail; going nowhere. It is a matter of principles, however, that knowledge be garnered, clawed, scratched out, dug out from the deepest pits, and without a scrape of it lost or allowed to elude us. . .

Spoiler:

OOC Information

Within this text are clues for between three to seven ingredients that must be procured for a ritual. Each and every one of these ingredients have be correct before the ritual would be successful; what they are must be something that have to be guessed or gleaned from the text. Craer would probably be involved in actively pushing this Storyline forward, though others are welcomed to do so. Keep in mind, however, that there are effectively three stages here; Figuring Out, Collecting, and Executing. Be warned, for the wrong ingredients often cause the ritual to go awry, and then horrible things might happen.

Clues might be given out after time spent IC-ly researching, and mistaken reagents might be revealed singly or collectively; for example, it was decided to try out ingredients A, B, C and D; if A and B are correct but C and D are wrong, it might only be revealed that B. . .and D, are correct. The members involved might end up changing B and C, resulting in further confusion, as different ingredients react differently together. Further IC research would uncover the truth eventually, after debates, arguments and perhaps violent discussions. Perhaps. Refer to the title when you feel like tearing your hair out.

The ingredients can be anything. It could be the finger of a Priest, the heart of a woman, the toenails of a Worgen, or the brain of a gnoll. It can be esoteric, it can be common, it can be easily-obtained, it might be a herculean task. The text reveals everything, and nothing, but probably reveals something.

Conclusion

What manner of creature would this ritual unleash, one could only wonder. What towering monstrosity, what cunning fiend, devilish darkling or creature of the shadows, would be spawned from such an unholy deed. As scribes adjust their filmy spectacles and turn with trembling, ink-stained fingers unhallowed tomes, they delve ever deeper into a depth of depravity beyond mortal comprehension. Harken, mortal, if you would tread this path. . .

Spoiler:

. . .it would be fun. Oh, and Character Warning.

NOTE:
=> The First Attempt's timing is To Be Confirmed.