  Wizard Trembyle, 1647 GUE
Trembyle speaks through the Tele-Orb Trembyle after Morphius defeat (A) / (B) / (C) Trembyle Artwork [behind the scenes] |
Born in 1152 GUE, the telepathic Wizard Trembyle participated in the First Great Diffusion of 1247. In the result of the ordeal to scatter the evil magic, he, like all the others, were drained of their powers. Knowing this beforehand, Trembyle and the mage Canuk cast themselves a long-life spell ensuring that they would have enough time to recover their magic. When the other wizard’s eventually aged and died, Canuk and Trembyle became the only two survivors of Great Diffusion. A popular board game called Survivor was later invented in their honor.
In either the 1620s or 30s, Trembyle, along with Canuk, Moadikum and Rooper, founded IT&L in order to manufacture the recently discovered illuymnite and translumynite into a building material for resorts and also other high technological inventions.
On Dismembur 12, 1635, it was discovered that the Cluster had been stolen from the Temple of Bel Naire. Unknown to the other partners, Canuk was the perpetrator. Since he had always been an intuitive wizard, and this impulsive, it take quite some time before the others noticed that his schizophrenic (Morphius-possessed) state was dangerous.
The 1640's saw the start of the effects of the magical curse which Morphius had brought upon the valley with the disappearance of the buildings of Shanbar. The first of these to vanish and be relocated within the Great Underground Empire was the historic Inn of Isenough in Augur. One at a time, the local buildings were transported to a mysterious subterranean parallel Shanbar. In wake of these disappearances, and other strange goings on, the four partners became curious. After some tedious research and exploring, they discovered a secret door beneath the Old Mill. It led to the old underground empire, which no longer looked the same. It was a whole new world down there. Rooper talked the Wizard Trembyle, the mage Canuk, and Moadikum into further investigating the underground with him.
The vanished buildings of East Shanbar were discovered with their original occupants, having been relocated to the new underworld and Moadikum was reunited with his wife. Illumynite lighted this new world and the transported people did not seem to mind. And over time, more structures above ground would find their way to the underworld. The countless bloits of cavern that had been abandoned and dismissed as legend for almost four hundred years were once again thrown open to colonization and economic development.
The partners were excited and quickly consumed by the marketing potential of this new world: an underground resort with glowing rock formations, a giant theme park, and architecture based on the excavations of the old empire. And these were just the folks to do it. The Wizard Trembyle was a bit concerned to say the least. To him, this return to the old underground world was highly unnatural.
The four partners decided to develop the glowing illumynite caverns as an underground resort. Thus IT&L’s first underground project was Dizzyworld. Canuk drew up the plans for this and other land development prospects. In short time, the mage oversaw the designs of high technology commercial products, which would include the prototype Tele-Orb, lighting products, illumynite magnets, and illumynite batteries.
Moadikum planned the actual construction of Dizzy World. As a master strategist, the theme park was built like an army going into battle. When the partners decided to produce the Tele-Orb and illumynite batteries, Canuk was asked (since he was apparently the most knowledgeable person on illumynite outside of the dwarven community) to develop an interface between the batteries and the telepathic orbs. Canuk agreed to the task, but not out of friendship. He had been “instructed” to take the job by the silent voice inside him. Already he was submitting to the mysterious cluster’s control.
Canuk succeeded in making a device that worked with the Tele-Orb, but his personality was changing and the partnership with Rooper, Trembyle, and Moodock became strained. It was the future disappearances of East Shanbar that finally pushed them all apart, when in early Ottobur of 1640, the recently constructed headquarters of IT&L and Moodock’s Arms and Armaments, both located in East Shanbar, disappeared along with Moadikum and his shop into the underground. Thus the bugs of the Tele-Orbs were never worked out by the time the partnership folded. The unfinished orbs cold only receive but were unable to send.
Trembyle and Rooper soon discovered that something peculiar and magical was definitely occurring underground. An odd form of architecture was adopted, using illumynite building materials. New buildings had sprouted up everywhere, as if in preparation for mass immigrations. The more Rooper and Trembyle found out about Canuk and his alteration of the original underground plans, the more confusion and mysterious it all became. Rooper sharpened his awareness and prepared for the unknown. They began to investigate and snoop around. A confrontation between Rooper and the Morphius-possessed side of Canuk occurred on the Ferryman’s Isle. During the altercation, Rooper, in an act of self-defense, turned Canuk into a duck (he deflected a changeling spell thrown at him by the mage). The partners decided to leave Canuk in this state until they learned more about his strange behavior.
When Trembyle and Rooper caught on to enough of the evil process, they set out to destroy it before it reached an unstoppable point. They had discovered what seemed like a plan to enslave the minds and bodies of the known world inhabitants and create a new world of evil-generating structures. The environment, unbeknownst to these two, was being transformed into a huge incubator, allowing even further mutation and growth for the Cluster.It did not take long for Morphius to respond to the presence of the two snooping humans. Trembyle was the first to be turned to stone, having stumbled upon far too much information. And Rooper was shortly after.
Despite that he was turned to stone, Trembyle's powers could not be constrained entirely. He was able to communicate with the various Sweepstakes Winners through the Tele-Orb. While he could not receive communication in return, he could sense where they were. As a wise guy, he told plenty of jokes and uttered many homilies.
In 1647 GUE, Trembyle was forunate enough to be the guide for the unknown Sweepstakes Winner who was finally able to defeat Morphius. This was done by winning a game of Survivor (in which the authentic Trembyle and Canuk were pieces of a giant board). Morphius was furious at his defeat, releasing a terrible shriek of anguish that echoed through the Citadel of Zork, shaking its very foundations. Keeping his subjects as statues was very taxing. Unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, Morphius lost grasp of his confining spell. The statues began to dissolve. Rebecca, Rooper, the Holy Woman, Witch Itah, the Wizard Trembyle, and even Canuk were released from their stone imprisonment.
Rising to the occasion, the followers of good magic (Holy Woman, Itah, Trembyle, Canuk) moved to the center of the room and casted long forgotten spells which had been used during the First Great Diffusion. The spell travelled upwards towards the unsuspecting Morphius. He became stoned and fell out of the air that he was hovering in. The statue broke apart. The vile creature and all evil magic were dispersed into the atmosphere. The spell that kept the Citadel walls up collapsed and the room began to disintegrate. These events would be remembered as the Second Great Diffusion! Throughout the valley, from every tower to the depths of every crevice, evil magic had vanished.