Trinimac The Artemad

intoned by Mehzad Dani

Research into the magical properties of the wintry outcasts has led to new questions concerning the tonal craft.

These forms returned to us in a breath from the North, and already have set to vex us unceasingly. We have captured quite a few, but our experiments result in little more than flesh-flayed futility. Men are made of the lowest gradient. These are mere winks away from dust.

What avenues of understanding their physical frames have denied us, however, have been provided by their wandering and undisciplined thoughts. They ask, even in pain of death, so many impertinent questions.

Why did you capture us? Why are you torturing us? As if the questions didn't answer themselves. But one line of questioning has proved fruitful: What is the name of your god so that we can curse him?

Our kind has never known the need for gods. Our craft has enabled us to capture the sounds of the beginning time. We harmonize the names of the greater gradients and the lesser, we know our place and theirs.

Just as I pluck the tune, refine the hum, of this recording into its crystal-brass receptacle, so I might play back the hum of the first times. I record this for the benefit of men's ears, for they asked the question of gods, and this is the proper answer. All good questions must be answered.

Here at Mzulft, the library is limited. Nevertheless, I can still access logs of Adamant. I can review performance data for the sub-prismatic fluctuations of the void re-negating drive, or peruse navigation data of the final worlds visited before [Convention]. My people carry on this craft, which was originally intoned by our greater gradients of the first.

Our chief at that time was To'Zarka, rendered Xarxes by the haughty ones.

To'Zarka was the chrysalis of first striking. His [oversoul] heard the tune of the universe first of all, and his chrysalis followed an evolution of seeking the beginning and ends of melodies. In short, he was the original tonal architect.

His [over-gradient] was [egg-named] [Tsuunalinfaxtir]. The worker of tunes, the maker of melodies. To'Zarka had many before him, in the [re-gradations] of time, but our tonal records cite his role as [shield-thane] to Auri-El.

To'Zarka was the tonal craftsman, manipulating the hidden currents of vibrating intangibility, who created the weapons and [ghost-fields] of Auri-El's armada.

At [Convention] the council met to discuss the betrayal by [North Dragon rendered Shor]. As the world crumbled and [popped], accused LRKN was subdued in To'Zarka's [infinifield]. I have the data for the magnic transfer subsystem, this strained Adamant's power plants immensely.

LRKN had cursed the Nirnian Endeavor, doomed it. And yet, LRKN was bound to the Lunar Lattice. The voidal superstructure that held the worlds together, contained the darkness, and restrained the infinite and shouting insanity of Anu needed to be maintained. To'Zarka consulted with his sub-intoners on how to maintain the lattice while defeating [Shor].

The resultant plan was put into place: First, a keening cut. Second, a hammerclap to extract the affliction. Third, a shield to guard [Shor's] wraith, for he could not pass without the world following.

The cut was made with the subtle song of woeful Padomay. The hammer came down like the trumpet of bold Anu. And the shield was To'Zarka's own crysalis.

Of three, now there was one. The [enantiomorph] contained LRKN's heart, and now [Ysmaalithax] was discarded as husk in Aetherial wind.

This new gradient was named Trinimac. The thrice-made form.

As such, he became The Artemad.

Who is this Artemad? He is To'Zarka, but he is more than To'Zarka. His tonal craft transcends all the mundane.

In pace with the moons, Trinimac guards Mundus from the darkness within and the brilliance without. He is the embodiment of each. He, like the moons, orbits the heart of the world to guard it from Aetherial decay.

In this role, Trinimac the gradient still exercises his tonal craft. He is the intermediary between the mortal races, the dark of [Oblivion], and the infinite energies of Aetherius. It is his hand that scribes the Elder Scrolls.

He records the lives and deaths of all mortals, for Aetherius to recall. He weaves fate, hopeful or despondent, into the symphony of time. He is Xarxes, and he is the champion of our cause.

Trinimac devotes most of his energy to his role as Artemad, but with his remaining power he pursues the Great Cause! To undo what LRKN did! To reverse the tragedy borne of his lie!

We are the children of his sub-intoners. The power of Adamant was drained by the Sundering, and by Auri-El's efforts to save what was left of the worlds. Our craft is but a shadow of our ancestor's ability. We are but a shadow of that which begot us. We are bile, and were borne of bile, borne of unending streams of bile. We are a splinter of a splinter of nothing. The cruelest illusion.

So the Artemad, Trinimac, is he our god? No! He shares in our plight, and all of us exert what energy we have towards its reversal.

We study the deep, probe the void - from afar, from within insipid orreries, and even with the occasional void ship. We search below, above, within, without, as does our Master and Mentor, for our escape.

So, who should you curse, man, for your condition? I say this rhetorically, for the record. You should curse your God, Shor, ineffable [Ysmir] who even yet tries to reclaim his mantle, or any other he can lay his hands upon. He propagated this mortal curse upon all of us. His machinations prove the deceit of the self-consuming Aurbical ring.

Shor who stole To'Zarka's tones away from him as he fled [Convention], which Trinimac was forced, by his mantle, to ignore. Your voices may shout power, but our craft is subtle and patient. We will reclaim what is ours.

i am philibus dextro

is this working? i have found this extraordinary dwemer library. amazingly, some of these old recording device seem to work. i chose this one at random after translating the only word I could: man.

amazing, i did not see the connection of the dwemer to trinimac, though now i suppose it should have been obvious. it's that thing of scholarly orthodoxy.

and this artemad? what a discovery! yes, he fulfills the roles attributed to both arkay and xarxes, and yet he is more. i can't help but think of the god talos. zurin arctus as magnus would provide the connection to anu, and wulfharth as ysmir perhaps shor the padomaic essence. tiber spetim would provide the mixed essence, the child of the two, and the three enantiomorphs would form a what exactly?

a go-between? perhaps talos stands astride the lunar lattice, shouting to heaven on behalf of mortal kind as our advocate. trinimac seems to have been the opposite. this certainly puts shor and trinimac's mythical antagonism into context. but if trinimac was the artemad, and talos is now the artemad, then what happened?

oh, who can decipher the gods and their spheres, how they collide, or even determine how the cause and effect of divine action intersects with our mortal timeline.

then again, the dwarves attempted to repeat trinimac's sundering with numidium didn't they? yes that would explain what they were hoping to do and why. but why didn't they succeed? the universe is still here isn't it? did the tribunal stop them before they could complete the task as legend records?

of course! boethiah, the leaders of the chimer, conquered - ate is such a profane description - the dwarves and spoke as trinimac for a time. the heart of lorkhan! they interrupted the process before the dwarves could complete it! they hijacked it! their petty desire for temporal godhood mocked trinimac's rejection of lorkhan. their inability to use the tools properly corrupted both races. as trinimac was sundered from lorkhan's heart so too were chimer and dwemer separated from part of their respective ancestral sparks.

trinimac, god of oaths who recorded them for aetherius upon elder scrolls became the petty god of curses. the artemad brought low because of his singular obsession and hatred of the lorkhanic ideal. the tribunal left him with nothing but that hatred in the end. the now dunmer inherited trinimac's reserve of bad luck and ill fortune.

i wonder if the artemad is related to the dragonfires?

what's this? the door's have shut. is this an infernal trap. indeed, blades from the ceiling. but i must bring word of this knowledge to the academy. [pain curse plea]

[end record]