First of the Sages

First of the Sages is a manuscript of unknown and unclear provenance. It was found in a buried archive beneath the City Undying, but it is written in a nearly forgotten script now only found in the Unaian Wilds.[1]

Excerpts
"I am the first of the sages. I am alone."[1]

"For a time, I believed that I was mad. After many broken years, I came to understand that I was born to walk paths that do not exist. The Hero will appear in the fullness of [translation uncertain] and sages will guide Him, but He has not yet been born. All my wisdom is beautiful and meaningless, perhaps more beautiful for being meaningless."[2]

"This would seem to be a jest of fate, yet the very wisdom that haunts me also forbids me any comforting lies. I was simply born before the Era of Legend, before… [illegible section] …as one cursed to wax poetic about fruit without ever taking a single bite. A malformed twig of destiny."[3]

"Some say that I see into the future, yet this is not true. It is also not seeing into the past, except in a bitter sense. Rather, I see deeper into the world itself. Fate is a growing [translation uncertain] stretching skyward. Roots grow deep and cohere in a [translation uncertain] blue."[4]

"Cast as an actor without a play, there is nothing I can do that would have any weight. Yet this is true of all. I am unique only in that I understand the futility. It seems an endless cruelty for entire generations to live for only a single purpose, their lives made icons."[5]

"Others in the past have had purpose, for what little good it did them. Entire empires falling and rising solely for the sake of a seal, a sealed [translation uncertain]. Yet when I attempt to seek out those seals in my dreams, I can see nothing but the knowledge that it is not yet time."[6]

"Meaningless steps took me to a dark library of ages, a place where even… [illegible] …it is a small comfort to know that there are those whose lives served even less purpose than mine."[7]

"I have met a man and a woman who were neither. For the first time, I found someone who understood my… [section destroyed] …though his drive is terrible, it is her vision of our path that consumes my dreams. For the first time, I am glad that I will not live to see those days."[8]