Bloodstone Prophecy

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Stanza	Notes
1	missing
2 1 The bleak secret is kept 2 in an ancient tomb, 3 and neither walls nor blades 4 deter the raiders. 5 Battle and storm sweep in loud: 6 distraction, misdirection, fog of war. 7 The wandering sentries stand, 8 but fall: their bodies lost in the fog, 9 then taken to the diabolic deep, 10 held for experiments, and forced to sleep. 11 Yet first silver fingers catch drops of life 12 from each hero, an essential trace. 13 The wayward machines spirit these drops 14 to a world of just one race.	The attack on Quarenzend 7: the Roving Guard 12: soul shadows 11, 13: Myriad of the Assembler Rebellion 14: Earth
3 1 In frozen libraries of wizards' regret, 2 burning with envy of their brethren's freedom, 3 the deathless scholars listen as 4 a forbidden secret of a fallen empire 5 --the twinned slaves' nemesis-- 6 is told again on a forked tongue.	1: Cania, the 8th level of the 9 Hells of Baator, domain of the archdevil Mephistopheles 6: Someone lied to the scholars
4 1 An infernal recipe for rending reality 2 is shared and copied most diligently. 3 First, a life is taken through ritual, 4 the soul bound within a jewel: 5 a reservoir filled as the victim bleeds, 6 damned by a promise laced with greed. 7 Like fire in a bottle, 8 the soul's journey is halted. 9 A sublime tension starts, 10 unnoticed or ignored.	1-4: Creating a bloodstone 9: Strain
5 1 Second, a technique for tapping life raw, 2 burning a soul gives arcane stamina. 3 Thus is sealed a tacit contract: 4 woe befall a magician who knowingly 5 draws heat from a prisoner's torment. 6 Corruption pays for such cold utility. 7 Witness the harvest: the souls 8 of selfish arcanists, joining 9 the ranks in the cold-infernal stacks.	9: Using a bloodstone condemns the user to Mephistopheles' fortress in Cania
6 1 Third, the jewels are sealed into 2 extraordinary devices. 3 Suffering powers devices great 4 and terrible. 5 Mass murder unprecedented. 6 Strain is part of the price all the people pay: 7 deviation, transmutation, mania. 8 And on the generals' war-fever burns.	Bloodstones are used to power various weapons of war
7 1 The two-faced barterers offer up 2 secrets of colossal weapons. 3 The merciless forges step up their yield! 4 Behold the truth of the bargain, 5 writ large on the bodies of the giants. 6 Doubt grows--far, far too late.	2: Graven Hulks 4-5: The Blood Debt
8 1 Fourth, an art of breaking the jewels 2 into tiny beads: like jagged pills, 3 a medicine that kills, 4 or mixes souls like jam, 5 made in the crown of a ram.	Bloodstones are transformed into Metabiotic Crystals 5: The soul forge at Ramshead
9 1 Thus is life further woven wrong. 2 The pernicious agent plays the song, 3 and all the greedy mortals dance, 4 dragging whole worlds into aberrance.	4: Strain becomes a world-spanning malady
10 1 The not-jewels are carried thus 2 to other worlds, where too-curious 3 chirurgeons dabble unwisely. 4 The more they learn the less they see. 5 Yet plutocrats and men of gee 6 ensure their work persists. 7 The web of life still further twists.	3: Scientists like those at NeoCyclic
11 1 Cravings strong drive victims 2 to the brigands' hand, to imbibe 3 un-medicine none understand. 4 The result: Strain, True Order's bane. 5 Moreover, the mother bear's paw 6 has fouled the recipe. 7 Not easy majesty but instead 8 anger and violence 9 spring from chirurgeons' maths: 10 the race-mixed failures 11 feel only wrath.	5-6: Luthic interferes 10-11: Metabiotic Crystals spawn orcs, gnolls, and similar humanoids
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