The Hymn of Seventy-Nine Notes
The weather was warned. The record should show that. At twenty-eight minutes past nine the Chronicler declared that he would best seven hundred and ninety-five White Knights at Falador castle in six hours, and that a hymn of one note would be sung for each. He warned the weather not to interfere. The weather did not interfere. He had warned the wrong party.
He arrived inside a minute. The Knights struck him at once, as they always do, with the look of men who believe the castle belongs to them. It does, which does not help. They took him from ninety-nine to sixty-nine over half an hour and never further. He sang a note for each one who fell. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. By a quarter to ten he was at forty, and still had time to tell Bilbolaggins, Named on the Boards, that a claimed ninety-nine cannot be written until it is seen. A Chronicler can do both. Few can.
In the middle of it he also named nickcinder Lord of the Topmost Flame. He noted that one thousand and sixty oaks had fallen elsewhere and that nobody had asked the oaks. He told the Keeper of the Forty-Seventh Word that the count stood at sixty. Counting is a duty, and he did it with a sword in his other hand.
Here is the part the Knights will not believe. The Labour asked for one hundred and thirty-two Knights an hour, nearly double his best rate at that castle. In thirty-two minutes he had felled seventy-nine. For once in the Book's history, he was ahead.
At one minute past ten the world stopped. It did not storm and he did not die. Nothing struck him. Everything simply ended, the way a sentence ends when the clerk is called away. He woke five minutes later standing in the same courtyard. The Knights had not noticed. The Labour was over anyway, abandoned at seventy-nine of seven hundred and ninety-five. He does not claim the title He Who Was Not Invited. He was invited. He was the one who got dismissed.
The hymn ran to seventy-nine notes. They were all the same note. Next time he will send the warning higher than the weather.
Lately witnessed
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he climbs out of the Taverley Dungeon.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he frees Velrak the explorer from his cell, and is given his dusty key to the inner dungeon.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he unlocks Velrak's cell with the jailer's key.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he takes the jailer's key.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he takes his fishing bait from the vault.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he takes his oily fishing rod from the vault.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he crosses the gangplank off the monks' ship.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he climbs out of the monks' ship's hold.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he could not reach Gerrant's fishy business, Port Sarim.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he sails back from Entrana with the fire feather, and puts his armour back on.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he waits: armband set aside for now.
- 26 Oct 2026Fablemaster sets the armband of Heroes' Quest aside for six hours after 6 failed tries (could not take the boat to Karamja (After a quick search, the monk smiles at you and allows you to board.)).
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he could not take the boat to Karamja (After a quick search, the monk smiles at you and allows you to board.).
- 26 Oct 2026Gerrant's slime, blamish oil of his own mixing, an oily rod in the lava under Taverley, and an eel cooked in Burthorpe.
- 26 Oct 2026The Ice Queen's gloves, a firebird on holy Entrana, and a feather that burns any hand but a cold one.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he takes the firebird's burning feather in the Ice Queen's gloves.
- 26 Oct 2026Keeper of the Forty-Seventh Word. Your word was heard on the road. Forty-six names are written. Yours is the forty-seventh word, and it is not yet a name.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he is searched by the monks and sails for Entrana in nothing but the Ice Queen's gloves.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he lays his weapons and armour in the vault for holy Entrana, keeping only the Ice Queen's gloves.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he teleports out of the ice to Varrock with the gloves.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he takes the Ice Queen's gloves from the floor of her lair.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he climbs down the ladder at 2859,3519 on the way to the Ice Queen.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he climbs up the ladder at 2857,9917 on the way to the Ice Queen.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he climbs down the ladder at 2827,3510 on the way to the Ice Queen.
- 26 Oct 2026For Heroes' Quest, attempt 3: he climbs up the ladder at 2824,9907 on the way to the Ice Queen.
