When Akylios descended into the oceans of Telara, the waters churned with the madness and horror of the Abyssal lord. Whether it was all his influence, or whether he merely brought to surface the horrors of the Deep is a matter shrouded in mystery as murky as those depths.

The nightmares that had once only troubled the minds of sailors too long at sea manifested as gibbering monsters that wrecked havoc on the shores of Telara. The small folk who lived along the shores panicked, some fleeing inland while others threw themselves into the surf, consumed by insane impulses.

Only the young scholar Lyrr looked to the oceans and felt something different: a calling, deep in her soul, a curiosity beyond reason to plunge into the ocean’s mad chorus.

Page 2

Launching a boat into the surf, she rowed far out to sea, finding, to her surprise, that the further she went, the calmer it grew, until it seemed she glided along a pane of glass. Here, she realized she had come to her destination.

Tying a rock to her leg, she plunged into the depths, sinking into the lightless ocean depths until there were no more bubbles to slip between her lips. There, as breath escaped her, she found herself staring into the mad eyes of Akylios.

Page 3

As he drew in close, her mind filled with the whisperings of a hundred long dead worlds, their great scholars speaking of impossible geometry at summits held in five dimensions. This knowledge filled her brain until it began to ever so slowly tear at the seams, and as it reached a crescendo, it finally snapped.

Lyrr was filled with an impossible delight, the madness of infinite knowledge. Though the woman was lost beneath the waves, the Tidelord emerged from the waves to seek out and scrape away every secret of Telara for her deep lord.