The 5 Fables is a story written by Stu King (Couch Warrior) and produced for YouTube. The story is written in manuscript or "screen play" format and here is where you can read the story and watch the video that was produced from the manuscript.
Prologue
History is a vast and limitless thing. Each rotation of Nirn is but an ephemeral thread in the infinite tapestry of time. Time neither loves nor hates us. It does not care how we choose to live or if we are noble in the face of death. Even the gods must bow to the inexorable power of time.
Time does not empathize with mortals. It is the impassive, unshakable and ever present truth that surrounds us. But while time is ambivalent to our mortal plight, it is also the source of our greatest gift. The gift of life. Each of us is given a thread in the great tapestry of time. This thread contains our history and its weave is up to each of us.
There are those whose threads stand out bright in the fabric of time. Heroes and villains of their age whose weave changes the pattern while others create knots that mar the great tapestry forever, leaving scars upon our collective history that will never be healed. It is not until we see our individual histories in this light that we begin to realize how insignificant we truly are, and yet this is our world and these are our stories. The real tragedy lies ns how few of our stories are remembered.
Time is cold and impassive and yet, contained within its fabric are the unrecorded tales of mortals. Sagas of triumph, failure, compassion and bloody betrayal, the ghostly threads that constitute the greater part of the tapestry in which our stories are woven. This is where I work. My name is Spurius Toifel. I am a scribe and lector of the Imperial Historical Archive of The Republic of Cyrodiil. Created in the year 4E 209 by Empress Annaig I, our order has been charged with the staggering task of gathering up and recording the threads of our collective history before they too become ghosts in the tapestry.
I have trained my entire life so that I might succeed in this mission but even so I am filled with trepidation as I pack my meager belongings and prepare to depart for the wilds of Skyrim. Even now, forty six years after the horrors that have come to be known as the "Great Dying", a black cloud hangs over the Children of the Sky. The cancer has been cut away and yet we wait, as if knowing the threat is not passed. It is into this uncertain quiet that I travel armed only with my quill and my books to record the histories of those who saved the mortal world from the darkness.
As the world reeled from the events of the "Great Dying", ripples spreading from its epicenter in Skyrim to the farthest reaches of the Summerset Isles and beyond, legends began to surface of the men and women who stood facing into the winds of our mutual destruction. They were not emperors or kings. They were not leaders of mighty armies but unknown souls who rose from the dust to fight for us all and then just as quickly as they ascended, they vanished from the world.
For years we did not know them but for the tales spread from campfire to campfire. Known as "The Five", it is said that they swore a blood oath to silence. Others claimed that they all perished in the cataclysm. If they are to be believed, the legends speak of individuals of unparalleled power who were capable of both brilliant honor and acts of unspeakable darkness. As if in a lightning strike, they appeared and for the briefest of moments, stood at the center of the storm. Known only by appellations given them by the terrified masses, the Thunder Head, the Aureate, Snow Flower, Miasma and the Deceitest changed the course of the world and then disappeared.
It has fallen upon the Scribes and Lectors of my order to record this history before it is lost to time. There are but eight of us however we are the best and brightest of the order. If there is yet truth to be found we shall uncover it. I have been dispatched to Solitude to speak with a man whom our sources claim is the one known as the "Deceitest". I am told that he is of Nordic decent and in failing health. I must verify and record his thread in the great tapestry before it is too late.
If the rumors are to be believed, the Deceitest was once known as the most hated man in Skyrim for reasons I have been unable to verify. I believe it is the mystery of this "reputation" that is the source of the disquiet I feel leaking into my heart. For years, historians have placed the darkness of "The Five" at the feet of this man speculating that it was he, who was the driving force behind the ambiguous and sometimes wicked actions of the group. However, there are those who have come to believe that, in fact, the group was fractured and four stood as a bulwark sheltering Tamriel from "The One" who wielded power beyond imaging. A terrible weapon made flesh, a dark child born of a dark time. If this is true, which of the five bore seed of destruction? Why choose now tell the story? It has not escaped me that I embark on a mission to extract the truth from a man whose very name implies deception.
How strange that it should fall to me to complete this task? What if I should fail? This is not a story for story's sake. This is the collective history of we mortals both men and mer. It must be recorded for generations to come as a hopeful reminder of what we can accomplish in the face of death. An invocation to us all that we must not look to the gods to save us...we must rise up and save ourselves. We must not be afraid to write our own history if we are to survive.
So it is into recorded history that I will finally commit these tales. For too long have they been cloaked in mystery and it will be from these epics that generations to come, will draw the strength needed to face-down corruption. To survive as a people, we will need more that simple histories, we will need Fables.
The 5 Fables is a story written by Stu King (Couch Warrior) and produced for YouTube. The story is written in manuscript or "screen play" format and here is where you can read the story and watch the video that was produced from the manuscript.
Prologue
History is a vast and limitless thing. Each rotation of Nirn is but an ephemeral thread in the infinite tapestry of time. Time neither loves nor hates us. It does not care how we choose to live or if we are noble in the face of death. Even the gods must bow to the inexorable power of time.
Time does not empathize with mortals. It is the impassive, unshakable and ever present truth that surrounds us. But while time is ambivalent to our mortal plight, it is also the source of our greatest gift. The gift of life. Each of us is given a thread in the great tapestry of time. This thread contains our history and its weave is up to each of us.
There are those whose threads stand out bright in the fabric of time. Heroes and villains of their age whose weave changes the pattern while others create knots that mar the great tapestry forever, leaving scars upon our collective history that will never be healed. It is not until we see our individual histories in this light that we begin to realize how insignificant we truly are, and yet this is our world and these are our stories. The real tragedy lies ns how few of our stories are remembered.
Time is cold and impassive and yet, contained within its fabric are the unrecorded tales of mortals. Sagas of triumph, failure, compassion and bloody betrayal, the ghostly threads that constitute the greater part of the tapestry in which our stories are woven. This is where I work. My name is Spurius Toifel. I am a scribe and lector of the Imperial Historical Archive of The Republic of Cyrodiil. Created in the year 4E 209 by Empress Annaig I, our order has been charged with the staggering task of gathering up and recording the threads of our collective history before they too become ghosts in the tapestry.
I have trained my entire life so that I might succeed in this mission but even so I am filled with trepidation as I pack my meager belongings and prepare to depart for the wilds of Skyrim. Even now, forty six years after the horrors that have come to be known as the "Great Dying", a black cloud hangs over the Children of the Sky. The cancer has been cut away and yet we wait, as if knowing the threat is not passed. It is into this uncertain quiet that I travel armed only with my quill and my books to record the histories of those who saved the mortal world from the darkness.
As the world reeled from the events of the "Great Dying", ripples spreading from its epicenter in Skyrim to the farthest reaches of the Summerset Isles and beyond, legends began to surface of the men and women who stood facing into the winds of our mutual destruction. They were not emperors or kings. They were not leaders of mighty armies but unknown souls who rose from the dust to fight for us all and then just as quickly as they ascended, they vanished from the world.
For years we did not know them but for the tales spread from campfire to campfire. Known as "The Five", it is said that they swore a blood oath to silence. Others claimed that they all perished in the cataclysm. If they are to be believed, the legends speak of individuals of unparalleled power who were capable of both brilliant honor and acts of unspeakable darkness. As if in a lightning strike, they appeared and for the briefest of moments, stood at the center of the storm. Known only by appellations given them by the terrified masses, the Thunder Head, the Aureate, Snow Flower, Miasma and the Deceitest changed the course of the world and then disappeared.
It has fallen upon the Scribes and Lectors of my order to record this history before it is lost to time. There are but eight of us however we are the best and brightest of the order. If there is yet truth to be found we shall uncover it. I have been dispatched to Solitude to speak with a man whom our sources claim is the one known as the "Deceitest". I am told that he is of Nordic decent and in failing health. I must verify and record his thread in the great tapestry before it is too late.
If the rumors are to be believed, the Deceitest was once known as the most hated man in Skyrim for reasons I have been unable to verify. I believe it is the mystery of this "reputation" that is the source of the disquiet I feel leaking into my heart. For years, historians have placed the darkness of "The Five" at the feet of this man speculating that it was he, who was the driving force behind the ambiguous and sometimes wicked actions of the group. However, there are those who have come to believe that, in fact, the group was fractured and four stood as a bulwark sheltering Tamriel from "The One" who wielded power beyond imaging. A terrible weapon made flesh, a dark child born of a dark time. If this is true, which of the five bore seed of destruction? Why choose now tell the story? It has not escaped me that I embark on a mission to extract the truth from a man whose very name implies deception.
How strange that it should fall to me to complete this task? What if I should fail? This is not a story for story's sake. This is the collective history of we mortals both men and mer. It must be recorded for generations to come as a hopeful reminder of what we can accomplish in the face of death. An invocation to us all that we must not look to the gods to save us...we must rise up and save ourselves. We must not be afraid to write our own history if we are to survive.
So it is into recorded history that I will finally commit these tales. For too long have they been cloaked in mystery and it will be from these epics that generations to come, will draw the strength needed to face-down corruption. To survive as a people, we will need more that simple histories, we will need Fables.
I almost would have put the prologue as a separate blog, but I get the format. I like your word art. Watch the spelling of Cyrodiil. Two "i"s.
A lot of us help each other out by going over blog entries and editing for spelling and grammar. I know you are posting in a screenplay format and a lot of errors are hidden because you are reading on Youtube, but putting it in a written format makes these hidden errors easier to spot.
Interested to see where you go with this.
I almost would have put the prologue as a separate blog, but I get the format. I like your word art. Watch the spelling of Cyrodiil. Two "i"s.
A lot of us help each other out by going over blog entries and editing for spelling and grammar. I know you are posting in a screenplay format and a lot of errors are hidden because you are reading on Youtube, but putting it in a written format makes these hidden errors easier to spot.
