ENCHANTED LABELS LOSE THEIR FACES
Guild Baffled Over Empty Gilded Gallery Labels
Day 246 of the 5th Age
The Gilded Gallery candles, long adorned with the portraits of some of the Realm's most inspirational figures, were found mysteriously bereft of their faces this week, leaving only their names behind.
The incident came to light when a patron collecting an order remarked that the candles appeared to be rather… bare. A swift inspection confirmed the unsettling truth: all six varieties of the Gilded Gallery had lost their portraits.
Vaelora Stormforge, Chief Artificer of the Guild's waxworks, scoured the Artificiary, and found every stocked candle of the affected varieties displaying precisely the same peculiar condition: the names remained intact, while the portraits had vanished entirely.
While the candles themselves remain undisturbed, the Guild, unable to determine how such a thing had occurred, promptly sent inquiries to the town’s parchment manufacturer responsible for the labels.
Senior Parchment Artisan, Master Rhaymen Bondl provided his statement:
“I have witnessed this phenomenon before as an apprentice, [...] portraits of some of the Realm's most powerful figureheads had begun to accumulate a magical charge over time within the parchment itself. Eventually, the images began to move within the paper.”
Rhaymen claims the Guild’s current dilemma can be attributed to the figures choosing to leave altogether. The artisan was quick to acknowledge the incident as a testament to the quality of his parchment, and the unaltered methods passed down through his family for generations. The Viridian Gilded Gallery, it seems, had merely provided the right conditions for history to repeat itself.
Meanwhile, the Guildmaster has commissioned six new labels. The same parchment will be used, but the portraits omitted. When questioned on the decision, she offered the following explanation:
“There is little point in capturing the faces of those who inspire us if they feel trapped, or develop an interest in stepping out of their frames and wandering about unchaperoned.”
The Guild has declined to comment on whether the former portraits are expected to return.
⨺
— Extracted from Viridian Chronicle Edition 6
References in this article: