“ The accepted mode of getting otherwise unobtainable information is to go visit the cranky old hermit living in the mountains. It's just the sensible thing to do. So, naturally, everyone takes their monthly excursion to the hermit's hovel to consult him on everything, from lock-jaw to lovesickness, necromancers to nasal viruses.
Now, if everyone's always visiting the poor old hermit, there's going to be an enormous queue... 'Wellcome to the Hermitt's Hovele, Please Take Ye a Number and Have Ye a Seate' reads the sign outside the packed dwelling.
Imagine the poor hermit, having retreated into the mountains to escape this precise situation...”
“ There is a race of beings that have endless lifespans. Because of their eternal existence, the only forms of time which they understand are being and non-being. They do not understand words or ideas such as past, future, present, yesterday, today, tommorow, then, now, when, until, ect. They do understand yes, no, live, die, on, off, there, not there, existent, non-existent, ect.”
“ Jemas Lorne, the most celebrated poet of the age, was found dead, clutching a fragment of verse torn from his journal. The tantalizing fragment spoke of wealth:
Golden sands, empty and cold,
Treasure's crypt, forgotten gold.
Under stone, ancestor's doom,
Noble's prize, troubadour's tomb.
Rumours claim that the poet's father, an eccentric nobleman, had hidden much of his wealth before his death. Perhaps the missing journal has more clues?”