Journal of Mark De'Lure
From Valwiki
The Kratox and my Quest for its Mantel’s Shell.
It has been said by sailors that Syren enjoys basking in the ocean’s swaying kelp from time to time. Some claim to have seen a beautiful maiden’s face glance up at them from these forests of the sea. It was during one such occasion, on a warm and clear afternoon in Sunweep, that a fisherman’s son jumped overboard into the salty waters for a swim and subsequently discovered the Kratox. As he swam, letting the waves rock his body, the boy saw a young woman of the fairest features lying among the seaweed with outstretched arm. Enchanted by her beauty son swam deeper and was amazed to observe a snail nested on her forearm. The creature had the most intricate colorations: mixtures of greens and blues streaked the white conch shell. The basking lady, seeing her observer's astonishment, offered only a gentle smile. Yearning at once to be by her side, the boy cried out for her name, but only managed to produce only moans and gurgles. Giggling at his efforts, the maiden rose a finger to her lips and spoke in booming voice, so loud fishermen for two leagues heard, “Kratox” and vanished. Left behind, in the seabed, lay the elegant shell.
The boy’s father took the conch to a renown scholar and priest stationed in the lands bordering the north of his village. Immediately enchanted by the shell and its story, the clergyman hastily agreed to conduct a study. For two long years and one day the he toiled, exhausting the books and records of peoples as far as the eye could see. His spirit ever tireless, the clergyman was finally blessed with a vision in dream two nights after the second anniversary of his labors. The next morning he sent the fisherman and privily explained the secret revealed in his slumber. Half the secret, the shell's powers, the two men took to their graves. The other half survived in the minds of the fisherman's kin. And it was this: If ever to have its powers employed, The Kratox must be blown and made to boom for miles. But what cruel irony! For the shell was so small that none could muster the breath to make it sound. Taken home by the fisherman, the shell was passed to his eldest son, and in time to his son, and so forth for as long as it was possessed.
The continents have since shifted and the family reached the end of its line, though their lore lives on. Upon discovering this story in an aged Empyrian collection of tales, I was enthralled. I have often traveled and observed that the trunks of trees on mountain slopes are enough to make the wind moan; if taken to Mt. Vertigo and held into the howling night gusts, I believe the Kratox will sound. I tracked old village’s location to the coast of the western desert. I scoured the beach and countryside for two month, building up quite a shell collection, before finding a greenish-bluish conch of the description in a rotten chest that sat squarely within all that remained of a ruined cottage’s foundation. The shell spoke to me and I knew it to be my prize.
“As I traveled back to Ganelon, half through desert southern and half through mountain, I was forced to take refuge in a cave by a sudden sandstorm. To my great misfortune a party of fiends were like minded. A party of four Drow discovered my little hideaway and robbed me of my all belongings. I don’t know if they were pilgrims or residents, but I believe they were on their way to the West Forest where a community of Drow reside among the spiders. And thus the The Kratox’s conch was lost as soon as found...
The man signed the parchment “Mark De’Lure” and closed his journal.
