Another cursed object added to the ark. This is the necklace of Brisings, owned by Freya and made by the Brísingamen brothers.
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Thank you and I hope you enjoy!
For context on the world, please see the Intro post and context on the rings of The Sorcerer King, please see Item 22.
Now
that we have established who The Sorcerer King was, we can start with the rings
he used to become a feared and powerful magic user, as well as how he used them
to overthrow Gwyddno
Garanhir and become the new King of Cantre’r Gwaelod.
And we will be starting with the first ring
he used to implement step one in his plan to take over Cantre’r Gwaelod. And
that ring is the Brisings ring, which was named after Freya’s necklace, The
Necklace of the Brisings.
Which coincidentally, I have collected on
behalf of Sister Death. I was sent to collect it due to the fact that I already
had all the rings of the next collection and there was no need to travel around
to pick them up one by one, as with the Excalibur collection. But The Necklace
of the Brisings, is classified as a cursed item. This means I can’t talk about
it publicly, but if you want to learn about The Necklace of the Brisings and
its origins, you can! The post, Item #128 The Necklace of the Brisings, will be
available on my Patreon, here:
Anyway… back to the ring. Now as mentioned The Sorcerer King decided that after gaining two rings, that,
that is what he was going to use as his main power source. And while searching
for his next three rings, he got the idea to get a ring that had the same power
as Freya’s necklace.
That
being the power to reflect and show whoever looks at it their deepest and most
wanted heart’s desire. Now unlike me (and if you want to know as well, consider
checking out the Item
#128 The Necklace of the Brisings post
on my Patreon), The Sorcerer King didn’t know the full story of the necklace,
how it was made or the deal Freya made to obtain it.
But what The Sorcerer King did know was who made it. It was the Brísingamen brothers, who were four skilled metalsmiths. Their names were Dvalinn, Alfrik, Berlingr, and Grer. Although at first no one knew their names, but after Odin, Freya’s husband at the time, found out about the necklace, he had them captured and thrown in prison.
So,
that made it easy for The Sorcerer King to locate them, but getting to them and
getting to make him a ring, was a whole other ball game. But luckily The
Sorcerer King was friends with Baldr’s assassin, Loki (see Item
#59: Eilifligh flamberge or the Immortal killer).
Now
even though we know Loki killed Odin’s son, Baldr, Odin at the time didn’t know. He believed that Loki was
innocent and even considered Loki as a brother. This meant that Loki was close
to Odin and was allowed to go anywhere he liked in Asgard, which The Sorcerer
King planned on taking full advantage of.
With the help of Loki, The Sorcerer King got the dwarves out of the Asgardian prison and took them back to their cave and workshop.
The
dwarves agreed and used the same materials that was left over from the necklace
(see the exclusive post: Item
#128 The Necklace of the Brisings on Patreon to learn what materials they
used).
Except, The Sorcerer King requested that they add an extra element, an obsidian mirror, which he took from the corpse of a tlamatiquetl (a shaman), from the land of Cemanahuac. The Sorcerer King acquired this mirror after he found his Ring of Midas, more on that later.
The obsidian mirror is used by the tlamatiquetl to make predictions and reveal a person’s true intentions. But the obsidian mirror The Sorcerer King found was broken and could only reveal the truth, but that was good enough for him.
To that I answer: One, for the ring’s truth
powers to work, one must look at the ring very closely, and Merlin and The Sorcerer King stood too far away from each other. And
secondly, Merlin didn’t fake his death. He actually died, but the piece of
peach brought him back, thus Merlin wasn’t lying.
After the dwarves made the ring, The Sorcerer King then used his magic to cause a cave-in that
trapped the Brísingamen brothers in their cave. When they yelled out that The
Sorcerer King had betrayed them, The Sorcerer King replied that he didn’t. For
he promised that he will let them stay in their cave forever, which he
fulfilled. It was also a convenient way to prevent the dwarves from making more
Brisings jewellery.
The
Sorcerer King then added a special engraving to the ring that cursed it to stay
on his finger forever. In a later document I will expand on this.
Anyhow… The Sorcerer King now had the power to enchant and entice anyone who looked at the ring, and giving him the power to control them, as well as giving him the power to see their true intentions.
This included, forcing them into his army or making them his slaves, to serve and fulfil his every need and want in the palace.
The Sorcerer King controlled people by getting them addicted to looking at the ring, as it put them in a dreamlike state, similarly to a drug. So when he took the ring away from them, they would do anything to look at the ring again and enter the sweet dream life that the ring showed them!
Now I should mention that The Sorcerer King also had a special glove made, that only covers his pinkie, which is where he placed the Brisings ring.
He also
had to cover it up, as most found it too distracting, preventing them from doing
the tasks given to them.
He also
had it made to only cover his pinkie because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to
affectively use the other rings.
Now
this ring was used in The Sorcerer King’s first step in taking over the kingdom
of Cantre’r
Gwaelod. You see to help weaken King Gwyddno Garanhir’s defences and allow his
Viking and Deep Ones army to easily take over the city he had to flood it. Thus
allowing the boats filled with men to sail in and to let the fish people swim
straight into the kingdom without any real opposition.
To do this, The
Sorcerer King sent in the Viking King Seithennin on a fake diplomatic mission.
Seithennin was sent in to scope out the
area and help The Sorcerer King get close to the fairy Mererid,
a priestess and follower of The Lady of the Lake.
According to the history books, the
great-grandfather of King Gwyddno Garanhir, King Maes Gwyddno, grew very
arrogant because he controlled the best fishing spots in the British Isles and
blocked off anyone from entering by deploying his navy to destroy and plunder
any boat that came too close. The only way to pass safely and get some good
fishing done was to pay an insane amount of money to pass. And even after you
pay, the navy would take half of what you caught.
This annoyed The Lady of the Lake, who then
proceeded to stop any more fish from going to the spots patrolled by Maes
Gwyddno’s navy. This made Maes Gwyddno so angry that he cursed The Lady of the
Lake and polluted her oceans. The Lady of the Lake then cursed all of the wells
in the kingdom to constantly overflow, creating floods, destroying homes and
killing many people. But even then Maes Gwyddno refused to apologise.
The people of Cantre’r Gwaelod revolted and
killed Maes Gwyddno. Then they pleaded with The Lady of the Lake to stop the
floods. The Lady of the Lake agreed to stop, but only on the condition that the
son of Maes Gwyddno, Gwyddno Cardigan, and his offspring, must honour her and every
year the Kings and Queens of Cantre’r Gwaelod, must henceforth pay a big sum to
a fairy priestess that The Lady of the Lake sent to calm the water in the wells
and stop them from flowing over. This fairy was Mererid.
And so the Kings and Queens of Cantre’r
Gwaelod honoured this deal with The Lady of the Lake, who sent the fairy every
year to receive a large payment of gold, silver, diamonds and crop. And in
exchange the fairy stops the wells from flooding the kingdom.
And it was around this time of year that The Sorcerer King went to Cantre’r Gwaelod and waited for the fairy
priestess to appear. The fairy, Mererid, arrived, but before she could fulfil
her duties, The Sorcerer King distracted her
with his Brisings ring, just long enough for Seithennin
to kidnap her. Mererid was never seen again after that!
This caused the wells to submerge the kingdom in water, which allowed Viking ships to sail and the Deep Ones to swim directly towards the castle.
But
that is where I will stop for now. The story will be continued when I go over
the next ring The Sorcerer King used that helped him achieve his goal.
The next ring is also the reason why The Sorcerer King can use the Brisings ring without it affecting him. Because it also affects the wearer of the Brisings jewellery. And the way The Sorcerer King did this was by cutting out his own heart, because that is what the ring and the necklace uses to enchant people.
But of course no one can live without a heart, so The Sorcerer King needed a ring that granted him immortality. This meant The Sorcerer King had to first find such an object before he could even ask the four dwarves for the ring discussed above.
And that is the next ring I will be examining, Item #25 The ring of Ouroboros.
Now you might wonder: how I was able to examine the Brisings ring without falling for its charms? And the answer is simple. When Odin learned that the Brísingamen brothers escaped, he searched all over for them. He eventually found them dead in their cave, most likely due to dehydration. There Odin found a special pair of goggles that was used by the dwarves to stop them from giving in to the spell that the ring and the necklace casted.
I was also sent one of the dwarves’ goggles
so that I may write up a full report for Lady Wisdom and for the ark’s archives.
Lady Wisdom put a safe guard on the hand’s case, that it can only be opened
when the goggles are worn.
The Lady of the Lake also put a protocol in
place that sets off a sprinkler system to flood the ark in case someone was to
open the case with the goggles and then take the goggles off, drowning them.
Now I don’t know about you, but I like being dry and able to breathe, so my need for those two things trumps my curiosity to look at the Brisings ring without the goggles!
But in any case, I will continue in Item #25: The ring of Ouroboros.
If you
want to support this site, please consider joining my Patreon, where I will be
posting exclusive content from time to time, which will be the "Cursed
Object" collection, items that are too dark to just be shared publicly,
for $3. The first post is already up and available for a onetime payment!
Find me on Patreon: patreon.com/OnlineCurator
For context on the world, please see the Intro post.
Now that we finished documenting the most
powerful weapons in Magusterra,
the Excalibur collection, it is time to collect The hand of The Sorcerer King!
This task was given to me by the new
Immortal, Merlin The Wizard King, which I will
just be referring to as Merlin. I was given this quest via a letter.
Who is The Sorcerer King? Well, no one knows his real name, except for Merlin, who refuses to say it, not even to the other Immortals! The reason for this is that Merlin believes that The Sorcerer King was his biggest mistake.
While Merlin was learning how to harness
magic without the help from the Immortals and magical creatures, he found many
orphans and adopted them. I mentioned two of them in the document: Item 61: Caliburnus or The
Immortal Key. Which is a cursed object and can only be read on my patreon here:
Merlin
raised many of them to respect magic and to use it for the benefit of Humankind.
And he succeeded for the most part, but failed with two of his adopted pupils, one
of them being The Sorcerer
King.
Very little is known about The Sorcerer
King. The little we do know comes from scraps of
burnt papers and lost journals written by one of Merlin’s scribes.
The
lose notes and books were found and stolen from the house of Merlin’s adopted
son Blaise, who became Merlin’s scribe and chronicler. Blaise showed a strong
potential to use magic and was found by Merlin in a library of a small village.
Blaise
was adventurous and a literary master, who went with Merlin on many adventures
and documented the wizard’s most amazing feats and accomplishments.
Blaise even documented when The Sorcerer King was adopted by Merlin. Blaise and The Sorcerer King became good friends, but that all changed when The Sorcerer King turned to evil and used Merlin’s research to usurp the throne of Gwyddno Garanhir, who was the King of Cantre’r Gwaelod, a now lost kingdom in the land of Cymru.
To usurp the throne, The Sorcerer King needed powerful weapons, so he sought out five artefacts that would make him as powerful as Merlin. The Sorcerer King used research papers he stole from Merlin and went to work on finding a way to get rich quick, so he can have the money to buy an army. This gave The Sorcerer King two options, the Philosopher’s Stone or the Midas Touch.
Now as we know from document Item #59: Eilifligh flamberge or the Immortal killer, the stone was missing alongside its creator, Flemmel, around this time. So, The Sorcerer King settled on the Rings of Midas, of which there were ten. We know the location of two. One is in the possession of The Troll King, and the other was used by Flamel to make the Philosopher’s Stone. The rest were scattered.
After a long and frustrating search, The Sorcerer King finally found one. How he found it will be discussed in a later document when discussing each ring individually. But what I will say is that The Sorcerer King realised why King Midas got rid of the rings: because once you put them on, you can’t take them off!
But lucky for The Sorcerer King, he only had one ring, so anything he touched with the finger that the ring was on, turned to gold. The ring didn’t affect any of his other fingers.
This was a relief to The Sorcerer King, but the down side was that having one ring reduces the power of the Midas Touch spell. This meant that The Sorcerer King could only make small things gold and he could only do it once every six hours!
The Sorcerer King painstakingly (in secret, for Merlin didn’t know about The Sorcerer King’s plan) collected stones and plants and turned them into gold until he was rich enough to hire an army.
The Sorcerer King hid this ring under a glove, but was discovered when Merlin presented him with a Power Ring. More on this later, but for context, it was a ring Merlin invented (with an individual simply known as the African Magician) that allowed Humans to use magic. Up until that point they were using wands and the rings were more powerful. The Sorcerer King excitedly took off the glove and put on the Power Ring, known as Pacator (peace bringer).
Merlin seeing one of the Rings of Midas, interrogated The Sorcerer King. Knowing that Merlin wouldn’t like the answers of where he got the ring, The Sorcerer King attacked Merlin and ran away. Merlin sent his apprentice Balthazar Blake, to capture The Sorcerer King.
The Sorcerer King knew he needed more
knowledge on magic. But he couldn’t talk to those close to Merlin, so The
Sorcerer King sought out other evil magic users, such as Koschei the Deathless (Item #59: Eilifligh
flamberge or the Immortal killer), Morgan le Fay (Item 61: Caliburnus or The Immortal
Key), Loki (Item #59: Eilifligh
flamberge or the Immortal killer), the Lich King and many more.
The next ring The Sorcerer King wanted was one made by the four dwarves that made Freya’s necklace of the Brisings. He wanted a ring that had the same powers as the necklace: to enchant and control people with its beauty.
But before The Sorcerer King could do that he had to find a way to be immortal in order to use the Brisings Ring. So he created a ring of Ouroboros.
After that he found the four dwarves and got the Brisings Ring. This was in Nordrvegr, where he also met the Viking King, Seithennin, who had a small army and helped The Sorcerer King get hold of the four dwarves.
They are a race of fish-humanoid creatures
that live deep in the oceans. The Deep Ones are divided into two factions. The
first are guardians of The Lady of the Lake and her treasures.
The second are part of a group that left
The Lady of the Lake’s employ to work for an evil creature that came from the
shadows when the unknown light appeared, known only as Cthulhu, The Sleeper of
R'lyeh, who was defeated and imprisoned in Atlantis by The Lady of the Lake.
Cthulhu, got the Deep Ones to revolt, by convincing their King, Dagon, now called Father Dagon, (a title given to him by Cthulhu), who is the son of The Lady of the Lake and Cronos.
Cthulhu’s Deep Ones, know they can’t defeat The Lady of the Lake by themselves, so they planned to try and take over the world above, by striking deals with villages and kingdoms who were struggling with food, by giving them fish. In exchange the people of the village or kingdom must worship Father Dagon and once a month give up their unmarried woman to take part in “breeding rites” where the women are impregnated by the Deep Ones to help build up Cthulhu’s army.
This plan of theirs has been very slow, due to the interference of The Lady of the Lake’s and Sister Death’s armies, who stop them and kill the woman still pregnant with the Deep Ones’ offspring.
The Sorcerer King decided to exploit the
Deep Ones and had the Viking King take him to the nearest Deep Ones settlement
close to Cantre’r Gwaelod. And this was an underwater kingdom known as Y'lu-Y'loa,
where Dagon was coincidentally hiding.
The Sorcerer approached Dagon and asked him
for help to take over Cantre’r Gwaelod. And promised Dagon that he will allow
Dagon to practice the breeding rites as well as share in the kingdom’s spoils
when they take over.
Dagon liked this idea, but he needed a
strong commitment from The Sorcerer King, a promise that he won’t double cross
the Deep Ones. So Dagon proposed that The Sorcerer King marries his daughter Shala.
If The Sorcerer King agreed, Dagon would give him a wedding ring that allowed him to control and command an army of Deep Ones, but if he tried to turn on Dagon, the ring would break and the Deep Ones would attack him. The Sorcerer King agreed and that is how he got his final ring.
So to recap, The Sorcerer King had five rings, all on one hand:
-Pointer finger, The Ring of Midas
-Middle finger, The Power Ring, Pacator
-Ring finger, The wedding ring of Shala
-Pinkie finger, The Brisings ring
-Thumb, The ring of Ouroboros
Now, I won’t explain in this document how
he took the throne from Gwyddno Garanhir. Instead I will reveal how he did it step
by step when discussing the rings individually.
But I will close off this introduction to
the next series of artefacts with how Merlin stopped The Sorcerer King and how
that led to the destruction and demise of Cantre’r Gwaelod.
When the cease fire took into effect, and
the Humans and Immortals stopped fighting, Merlin approached The Lady of the
Lake to help him stop The Sorcerer King.
The Lady of the Lake sent a handful of Deep
Ones from her faction to infiltrate The Sorcerer King’s ranks as spies. And
even Balthazar Blake got himself captured to get close to The Sorcerer King.
Now, how to remove the rings?
First Merlin wanted to use the water that
removed Midas’ rings, but that lake was dried up and besides it would only
remove the golden touch ring. And assassinating The Sorcerer King wouldn’t work
because of the Ouroboros ring. A full scale attack wouldn’t work because The
Sorcerer King had two rings that controlled a Human army and an army of Deep
Ones. And a magical attack would be difficult due to The Sorcerer King’s
knowledge in dark magic from other evil magicians, which are amplified by the
power of Pacator.
So the only option was to sever his
connection to the rings by cutting off his hand. Which through careful
planning, memorizing the guards’ schedules and years of waiting the plan failed
and led to the death of Balthazar Blake.
For Balthazar Blake was meant to convince
The Sorcerer King that he wants to join him and leave Merlin, causing The
Sorcerer King to let down his guard. Then The Lady of the Lake’s spies would
swoop in and cut off the King’s power source.
But The Sorcerer King saw through Blake’s lies and killed him. The Sorcerer King even had the spies killed off one by one when on one visit, Dagon, told The Sorcerer King that he didn’t recognise some of the guards.
Heart broken, Merlin pleaded with The
Sorcerer King to give back the body of Balthazar Blake. The Sorcerer King
believing that he had broken the great wizard, allowed Merlin’s request and
even oversaw the delivery of the corpse to Merlin himself.
This led to The Sorcerer King’s fall,
because in is arrogance and gloating over his victory against Merlin, he failed
to see the giant serpent, The Immortal One, hiding and waiting for Merlin’s
signal.
Once Merlin gave the signal, The Immortal One jumped out and grabbed The Sorcerer King and held him tightly in his jaw. And when The Sorcerer King commanded his small army, which accompanied him to meet Merlin, to attack, he found that they were all dead.
Turns out that The Lady of the Lake already had a spy in Dagon’s ranks. This spy was there from the beginning when The Lady of the Lake started to suspect that Dagon was conspiring against her!
While The Sorcerer King and his small army were waiting, the spy poisoned their water supply. It took time for the poison to work, but when it did, the army fell.
The Sorcerer King was also too far away to call on more men to help him. He used his magic to break free from The Immortal One’s hold and attacked Merlin. Merlin held his own against The Sorcerer King. But Merlin wasn’t strong enough and was struck down dead by a dark spell.
The Sorcerer King, relieved, went to pick up Merlin’s body as proof that he truly was The King of Sorcery. But again, before a fall comes pride and when The Sorcerer King grabbed Merlin, Merlin pulled out Caliburnus, which he borrowed from Arthur, and cut off the King’s hand. Without the rings, The Sorcerer King instantly perished.
It turns out that Merlin knew he couldn’t get close enough to The Sorcerer King by force, due to his strength. So, Merlin approached The Immortal One with a plan to use The Sorcerer King’s hatred and hubris.
This plan involved a peach from the Celestial Peach tree (Item #59: Eilifligh flamberge or the Immortal killer) and Merlin’s death. The Immortal One gave Merlin a small piece of the peach, just enough to bring him back to life if he was killed, which helped Merlin get close enough to The Sorcerer King. And the use of Caliburnus, was just to make sure that the hand would be severed without any problems.
After that Cantre’r Gwaelod saw many riots and power struggles between the Humans and the Deep Ones, which caused many civil wars. Then when the cease fire ended and the Immortals and Humans carried on with the war, the kingdom fell due to there being a lack of security or protection. Eventually The Lady of the Lake took pity on the Humans in the kingdom of Cantre’r Gwaelod, and to stop the rise of the Deep Ones who want to defeat her, she flooded and completely wiped the kingdom from existence.
Now the hand was taken to an underwater cave, protected by The Lady of the Lake’s Deep Ones. This cave is so well hidden that the Deep Ones posted there, were brought there blind folded by Merlin as to keep the location a secret. Not even The Lady of the Lake or Lady Wisdom know where it is!
Then Merlin, burned down Blaise’s house along with all of the records that talk about The Sorcerer King and his origins. But there are still remnants from those papers, that were found by scavengers and thieves who sold the documents on the black market.
But now Merlin was obligated to give up the location. And this is where the ark sent me. It was in the middle of a vast ocean, with no land in sight, except for a mountain that was barely peeking out from the waves.
I was greeted by one of these fish people.
His name was Garry and he immediately had four of his men put the hand into the
ark after he saw the letter from Merlin.
I was surprised by what I saw when I got
the hand. I was expecting a couple of bones with metal loops, but instead I got
a hand that was still intact. It turns out that even though it isn’t attached
to the main body anymore, the ring of Ouroboros still kept the hand from
withering and decaying away.
I was also given a special glass case that
was tinted to negate the power of the Brisings ring. I also got a pair of goggles
with the same glass so that I could closely examine it and document the
Brisings ring without being enchanted.
Good thing to, because without the goggles
I wouldn’t have been able to document the other rings, because the Brisings
ring, is the first ring I documented.
So join me as I talk about the first ring
in the next collection, The Sorcerer King’s rings, in the document:
If you
want to support this site, please consider joining my Patreon, where I will be
posting exclusive content from time to time, which will be the "Cursed
Object" collection, items that are too dark to just be shared publicly. The first post is already up and avaible for a onetime payment!
Find me on Patreon: patreon.com/OnlineCurator
