(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

one. Etched into the base of the urn were the words 'Fin Andlye - Beloved
Husband, Father, and Scholar of One Hundred Languages.'
I glanced over my shoulder and, reassured that Finam was preoccupied, I
gently opened the lid.
Probing the barrier between this world and the next, the ashes seemed to
stir faintly as if moved by my breath. A far-away voice whispered up from
within the urn. "Why, why have I been summoned to these ashes, cold and
grey as the heart of a hag?"
Now that contact had been made, I no longer needed to keep in such close
proximity. Leaning against the wall and attempting to appear casual, I
murmured in the breathless voice of the dead, "To answer some questions,
spirit..."
"Ask, then, so that I might return to my most quiet thoughts..."
"Who were you?"
"I was Fin, a linguist and scholar. I was murdered - murdered! - by a student
of mine... murdered so that I could not teach another the language that I
taught him. The tongue of the Uyo, it was, one of the rarest in the
multiverse. I knew of none who spoke it, save myself and that one,
damnable, murderous student..."
With the dodecahedron still unfolded, I described to him the strange
lettering.
"I could teach you this language, yes... it would please me to do so, in fact, if
only to spite that bloody-handed student of long ago. First, tell me what
languages you do speak..."
As the spirit spoke to me of the lost language of the Uyo, a throbbing
sensation pulsed in my temples as a memory began to surface... memories
of the language. It all came back to me... letters, words, phrases, until - like a
Spire-wind blowing away the blanket of poisonous smog over the Great
Foundry - the language was once more revealed to me in its entirety.
But even as that memory faded I could sense another one layered beneath,
bubbling to the surface... a darker one. Its presence stirred my heart, filled it
844