Solzhenitsyn's Gist

For long time only known as The Guilds' Gist.
The codified scroll holds an letter from J.R.R. Solzhenitsyn to an unknown Giancomo Guadagni. Solzhenitsyn is trying to warn Giancomo about the profound and dangerous nature of Mana. He uses metaphors to express that while humanity may believe it controls Mana, its true depth and purpose remain elusive. Solzhenitsyn cautions Giancomo against the hubris of trying to fully understand or dominate Mana, suggesting that it holds power far beyond human comprehension and that attempting to challenge it could lead to peril, both personally and cosmically. His message is one of humility and reverence for the unknown.
In order to work with mana one must approach it with humility and awareness of its dual nature—using it to shape reality while recognizing that its true essence cannot be fully understood or controlled. Balance is key, as overuse or misguidance leads to entropic pull into the Dim, while reverence and restraint allow for harmony and transformation without losing oneself to its mysteries.
Ingredients: Humility Awareness of the Dim Reverence for Mana Intentional balance
Instructions: Approach Mana with humility, recognizing its vastness and mystery. Maintain awareness of the Dim, understanding that misuse of Mana can lead to entropy. Use Mana sparingly and intentionally, shaping reality while respecting its greater cosmic significance. Seek balance between creation and destruction, avoiding overreach to preserve harmony.
Note: Misuse of Mana invites chaos and the pull of the Dim—reverence keeps you grounded.

This is the decoded text:

Dear Giancomo,
Just as that puzzled savage who has picked up – a strange cast-up from the ocean? – something unearthed from the sands? – or an obscure object fallen down from the sky? – intricate in curves, it gleams first dully and then with a bright thrust of light. Just as he turns it this way and that, turns it over, trying to discover what to do with it, trying to discover some mundane function within his own grasp, never dreaming of its higher function.
So also we, holding Mana in our hands and mouths confidently consider ourselves to be its masters; boldly we direct it, we renew, reform and manifest it; we sell it for money, use it to please those in power; turn to it at one moment for amusement – right down to popular bard's songs and taverns, and at another – grabbing the nearest weapon, cork or cudgel – for the passing needs of politics and for narrow-minded social ends. But Mana is not defiled by our efforts, neither does it thereby depart from its true nature, but on each occasion and in each application it gives to us a part of its secret inner light.
But shall we ever grasp the whole of that light? Who will dare to say that he has DEFINED Mana, enumerated all its facets? Perhaps once upon a time someone understood and told us, but we could not remain satisfied with that for long; we listened, and neglected, and threw it out there and then, hurrying as always to exchange even the very best – if only for something new! And when we are told again the old truth, we shall not even remember that we once possessed it.
Archaeologists have not discovered stages of human existence so early that they were without Mana. Right back in the early morning twilights of mankind we received it from Hands which we were too slow to discern. And we were too slow to ask: FOR WHAT PURPOSE have we been given this gift? What are we to do with it?
And they were mistaken, and will always be mistaken, who prophesied that Mana will disintegrate, that it will outlive its forms and die. It is we who shall die – Mana will remain. And shall we comprehend, even on the day of our destruction, all its facets and all its possibilities?
Not everything assumes a name. Some things lead beyond words. Mana inflames even a frozen, darkened soul to a high spiritual experience. Through Mana we are sometimes visited – dimly, briefly – by revelations such as cannot be produced by rational thinking.
Like that little looking-glass from the fairy-tales: look into it and you will see – not yourself – but for one second, the Inaccessible, the Dim, whither no man can ride, no man fly. And only the soul gives a groan …
With that groan, Mana can perform a miracle. It overcomes a man’s detrimental peculiarity of learning only from personal experience so that the experience of other people passes him by in vain. Beyond distinctions of language, custom, social structure, it can convey the life experience of one to another.
From man to man, as he completes his brief spell in the Terrable, Mana transfers the whole weight of an unfamiliar, lifelong experience with all its burdens, its colours, its sap of life; it recreates in the flesh an unknown experience and allows us to possess it as our own.
It's this miracle of Mana that essentially IS the Terrable. Without it the order of the universe would smother everything into oblivion. However it has to kept in balance. To much of it and everything slides into the Dim, to perfect entropy.
Whereas natural Mana can be recognized during state changes like melting, freezing, vaporizing, condensating and lightning. Our manmade Mana resonates in the quality, production, expression, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, tasteful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. Especially when at those moments when ultramarine becomes vermilion, bitter turns umami, silence is deafening and hearts break; especially at those kind of moments Mana is most pliable.
It is at those moments that the Terrable is most pliable. What will we do when we have the fate of the Terrable in our hands? For what purpose have WE been given this? For me that's the gist of it.
You, Giancomo, say that you've found the WAY. That you have discovered the truth of existence. This frightens me.
You've said before that death is unnatural. That it mocks life, like a cruel joke. And I've always understood your sentiment. Afterall Mana is timeless, there is too much to be learned about it. You have no time.
You say you can challenge Mana because I, a mere mortal, can not answer your question. "Can Mana create a prison so strong that Mana itself cannot escape from it?" However is it not THIS question that needs to be answered.
I worry for your heart. This runs deeper than you know, and you are part of it. If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Your heart was once a place full of great knowledge and wisdom. Like smoke. It slips away.
If you loose your faith, Mana is dead. Then there is no universal morality no values to live by. What is a man that forges his own morality?
Be honest: A hole grows inside of you. You feel the Dim crack in your very heart.
Save yourself, for Terrable's sake.
Vale dicere,

J.R.R. Solzhenitsyn