Ikusiegia Mirror (Ee-Koos-ki-gee-ah)

A most interesting instrument for both salvation and damnation - it is dangerous, yet compelling; horrifying, yet transformational. Above all, it seems to wish to bring wisdom to the world. Who would have thought that a mere human could create an item that even the gods have cause to both seek and fear?
- Melandru

It seems to be nothing more than a simple floor length mirror, set in a gilded frame, and usually covered with a silk drape. Unassuming at first glance, but it's haunting secret? It reveals truth to those who would dare to look upon their reflections.
Oh yes, fairytales speak of it, use it to evoke the best and worst of human behavior. It is after all, a useful plot device for morality plays. But these simple tales serve only to hide the complex reality that is the Ikusiegia Mirror.

Origins

by Tlcassis

The Ikusiegia Mirror is the most famous although arguably not the most powerful enchanted item created by High Wizard Bilatzailea who died during the Cataclysm. The mirror is renowned for granting wisdom, answers to deep mysteries, and occasionally and unpredictably, howling insanity to those who would dare to peer into its depths.
Bilatzailea claimed prior to creating the mirror that it would be a boon to mankind. She sought to create an item that would show the seeker truth, and believed that truth would set the seeker free. She was the first to gaze upon her reflection in it, and legends say she was markedly changed by the experience, becoming more humble and introspective, more distracted, at times more wild and driven, but more often slower to adopt new concepts while simultaneously producing her most innovative and powerful magical items.

Promise and Peril

Gods, kings and peasants have all sought out the Ikusiegia Mirror. Ancient humans, unaware of its danger, initially paraded the mirror from town to town, creating festivals that celebrated the coming of truth to their communities. Fees were paid to look upon it, with the price set according to the ability of the individual to pay. According to legend, the mirror itself chooses the price to be paid by each seeker, and this price was not always set in monetary terms, but often in words and heroic deeds. Some claimed to have found the truth they sought in the payment of the price itself.

Truth is never free, but it is always within the grasp of everyone who dares to both seek it and face it.
- High Mage Bilatzailea

Reactions of individuals to what was revealed to them by the mirror varied from introspective soberness (most frequently), distress (sometimes) to howling insanity (very rarely). Some tried to destroy the mirror, but it seems to be indestructable, having sustained attempts to burn it, break it with sledgehammers, and even once having been tossed off a mountain cliff into a deep chasm, all without suffering harm. The only effective recourse to protect people from accidently encountering it was to hide it beneath a silken drape.
After several incidents in which several high ranking government officials attempted to drown themselves after looking into it without paying the requested price, the mirror was no longer sent on traveling tours around the Northern Kingdom. It was instead secured in Cairne castle where people could make pilgrimages to "find themselves" or "discover ultimate truth". These sessions were watched over by guardians who were established to ensure that when the rare side effect of insanity occurred, that the seeker was protected from doing harm to themselves and others.
There are writings that have come down to us of revelations made by the mirror. Many came with questions, believing that the mirror was some sort of fortune telling device, but this was far from true. While it could, and sometimes would, reveal truth about a question of concern prepared by the seeker, it would usually ignore the questions it was asked in order to reveal other truth instead. It never revealed the future, and seemed almost obsessed with the person and past of the seeker themselves. In times of great national or global peril it was known to make exceptions to it's normal behavior and show events or the actions of those who would shape world events, the most notable of these being the casting of the spells that invoked the The Cataclysm and caused the ruin of the Northern Kingdom.

by tlcassis with Midjourney

The Ikusiegia Mirror in Literature

"Enchanted mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"

So begins a childhood fairytale told by humans of the great danger of vanity, and the depths of the capacity of humans to do evil. Unfortunately, the mirror of this childhood tale is no fable, but the Ikusiegia Mirror, and this fairytale is derived from a dark chapter in human history.
In ancient times, the ruling queen of House Herilal, Margret the Fair, looked into the mirror while her husband Luthreian the Mad was away at war. No one knows what she saw, but her sanity was torn from her. From then on, she was fascinated with the mirror and spent countless hours gazing into it. When she was finally kept by concerned courtiers from her obsession, she persecuted all the blond women who had the misfortune to come into her sight. Records exist of her beating one lady-in-waiting with whips constructed of thorny rose brambles until her body was a bloody, ruined mess. Others sought to escape from their insane mistress by fleeing into the countryside. Margret would then set out with dogs and huntsmen to track and hunt the unfortunate women driving them into the local swamplands where many met their deaths in the slimy bogs and quicksand.
Eventually, her servants conspired to restrain their mistress, locking her into a high tower, and throwing themselves on the mercy of the king when he returned from war, an act of bravery and daring, as Luthreian the Mad was not noted for his gentle treatment of his subjects. In this case however, finding his wife hopelessly insane, he pardoned his servants and kept her in captivity in her tower until her death two years later of mysterious causes.

Location, Location, Location

Today the Ikusiegia Mirror is lost under sheets of ice and snow, deep in the center of the Northern Wastes along with a host of other human relics of great power in the depths of the @Sunk. While it seems likely that it still exists, the Ikusiegia Mirror has vanished into the misty history of ancient Arrhynsia.