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The Cookie world was abuzz with the news. He was back. After thousands of years of dead silence, he was back!
It was most Cookies’ first time hearing about the Fount of Knowledge. The other four Emissaries were infamous, though only scholars of the arcane knew the history of the fallen Virtues having turned to vices after their fall. (In another version of this world, communication between the two continents had been cut off due to a war that had threatened civilization itself - but no such war had occurred in this one, and only culture and distance divided Crispia and Beast-Yeast.)
The Fount of Knowledge was a huge question mark in that history. It wasn’t a slow fade so much as a series of steps. The Fount was as sociable and beloved as any Emissary. Then, he withdrew, the doors to the Spire of Knowledge locked forever and the Fount only tentatively assumed to remain inside. Even his Academy fell by the wayside, never having contact with the Fount again. After centuries, over the course of a single day, his Spire of Knowledge, situated squarely on the Peak of Truth, had ceased to exist.
At least Knowledge never fell like the other Virtues. It merely faded.
Or, at least, that was as much as Cookiekind knew about the Fount’s history, and the Sage of Truth had never had any desire to correct them - especially not after so many millennia that Cookies forgot his own existence.
Oh, he’d fallen, alright - had his soul split in two just like the others, the very day he dared to exit his Spire after having come to the resolution that the Witches’ abhorrent tyranny could be overthrown if enough Cookies approached the Peak, which stretched high enough and was perfectly situated that they could see the Truth for themselves. It wasn’t a pleasant memory. And the Sage was no longer the Fount. With the smaller soul came a smaller capacity for Knowledge stored in his noggin, on top of all the other humiliations, so his infinite well of information had run dry. The Fount was gone for good - that was the Truth. In his occasional visits to his abandoned and wrecked Academy, he always shifted into a body significantly less similar to the original Headmaster’s out of a deep sense of shame.
The Sage was proud of who he was, though. What was divine revelation compared to the process of seeking out Truth? What was omniscience when compared to the delightful and invigorating process of learning? (He knew himself, avoided lying to himself, but this wasn’t a lie so much as a hopeful spin on an admittedly devastating change to his sense of self.)
But he’d been introduced to a bit of technology lately, a new form of Knowledge stored in bits and bytes and shared around Earthbread. He’d voraciously devoured all the information he used to know but had forgotten.
Which led to this… press conference. It had only required a few magic tricks to convince reporters that he was the real deal - just some divine-style manifestations, lights and sparkles, a winking illusion of himself and some tantalizingly legitimate sources to cite about himself on the way out - not much for the Cookie who introduced magic to Cookiekind in the first place! And now the Fount was on headlines, reminding Cookies who he was and why it was oh-so-important that he would reveal himself after literal millennia of silence. As a shapeshifter, returning to the Fount’s appearance was a cinch, and any bad memories associated with that body were ignorable in favor of the task he needed to complete.
“Goooooood morning, Cookies across Earthbread!” the Sage - scratch that, the Fount - crowed to the cameras, twirling his key like a baton to get some of the nervous energy out. “Thanks for tuning in on this supremely important Tuesday to take note of my temporary un-retirement! All questions will either be answered at the end of the press conference or never.
“‘Why announce yourself to Cookies now,’ I can hear you all asking! Begging at your monitor, screaming to your tablets, shaking your phones up and down in wonderment and awe and excitement! My, aren’t you the excitable type? Well, firstly, I’m publishing my very own Fount of Knowledge approved journal! That’s right! This is gonna be a reliable source, okay? Published, free for the world to read, all that good stuff. And you’ll know it’s from me because of the special magical seal imprinted inside!”
The Fount held up an example of the holographic seal of authenticity, much like the kind used on collectible cards. “Ooh! Aah! So get ready for free Knowledge, chock-full of academic references, interesting facts, and above all, a reputable source of information about things otherwise undocumented. It’s coming from me! The Fount of Knowledge! What kinda silly Cookie would question the Fount of Knowledge as a citation? No one!”
The Fount slammed his hands on the podium, startling several reporters. “Anyway! Second announcement. This one’s the meat and potatoes, folks! The reason I’m coming out of retirement! So I expect you all to stay here and listen, because this is history in the making!”
He waited until every eye was on him. Then he summoned a scroll, which he promptly unrolled until its length dropped on the ground, trailing for several feet. He also dropped his key (which remained, hovering, until he should need to grab it again) in order to snatch a pair of reading glasses from thin air purely for visual effect, and cleared his throat.
“Last Thursday at 02:27 standard time,” the Fount began, “Cookiepedia user RoomerMiller deleted my edit to the article ‘William Bakespeare,’ in which I corrected a ridiculous misconception about the spelling of his name, which any Cookie who met the man would know, on the basis of my ‘lack of credible source’ despite Cookiepedia’s clear instructions on reliable sources including firsthand accounts, and the same user’s continual deletion of every citation I made to my own blog. Of course I had recently created it in order to cite my edit. RoomerMiller, you wanted the blog author verified? Is this good enough, Roomie?” He grasped the podium so tightly that he scratched right through the cakewood. “I’m the goddamn Fount of Knowledge telling you on live television that Bakespeare did not spell his name without the ‘e’. Hell-ooo! Cookiepedia! Is this ‘verified’ enough for you?! Am I a credible enough source to cite, yet?”
The Fount paused. Caught his breath. Laughed amiably at the reporters, who were staring in what must have been awe.
“...’Scuse me! Got a little carried away! You know how it is when someone's wrong on the internet, right?
“Anyway! Next on the list. Last Thursday, this time at 02:38 standard time, Cookiepedia user SapphireGrape flagged my edit to the article ‘Nitrogen’ as ‘citation needed’...”