Second Sack

The Second Sack is remembered within the mathic (scholarly monastic) community as a major upheaval—one of The Three Sacks—that affected the Concent of Saunt Edhar (walled monastic community) and its central building, the Mynster (great temple hall).

First Appearance and Context

In accounts of the Mynster's layout and history, a pipe-organ once stood in the east nave but was ripped out during the Second Sack. In the years that followed, stricter rules under the Cartasian Discipline (post-Sack rule set) prohibited the use of other musical instruments inside the concent. A mathic dictionary entry further uses "Second Sack" as a chronological marker: up to the Second Sack, the Ita (technical support order) are described as a faculty, while later usage describes them as a proscribed artisanal caste.

Avout (cloistered scholar-monastics) also describe reforms framed "after the First and Second Sacks," when Convoxes (assembly of orders) defined which praxes (codified practices) would be permitted. Certain practices were explicitly grandfathered (e.g., photomnemonic tablets and the use of newmatter (advanced material) in avout gear), while broader syntactic devices (powered machinery) were proscribed and the Ita's segregated maintenance role was formalized.

A later recollection also uses the Second Sack as a practical boundary in technical collaboration: before the Second Sack, collaboration on "Saunt Grod's Machines" (quantum problem-solving devices) between avout and outside forerunners is described; afterward, such work is implied to have ceased.

Contemporary accounts also credit sequence-writing performed before the Second Sack with enabling durable food cultivars that produce nearly year-round, with less hardy plants raised in greenhouses through midwinter.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Part of the sequence of The Three Sacks that mark moments of violence and disruption in the concent's history.
• Operational lore holds that during such upheavals the great Clock could continue in a reduced mode using a sealed reserve when routine winding was interrupted.
• Reforms linked to the period following the First and Second Sacks proscribe syntactic devices in general use while grandfathering a few specific praxes; the Ita operate tolerated, segregated subsystems in places built around great clocks. These concerns are tied, in recollection, to anxieties stemming from the Terrible Events of the late Praxic Age.
• Accounts also recall violence against avout, including the execution of specialists from the Lower Vrone (lower-order math) who had developed the library grape, resulting in the loss of their unique expertise.

Relationships

• Tied to the fabric and practices of the Concent of Saunt Edhar, most visibly in the Mynster's east nave where the former organ is absent.
• Serves as a dividing line in mathic terminology and policy concerning the Ita and the handling of syntactic devices.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Specific causes, participants, and chronology have not been detailed in the narrative available so far.
• Concrete effects presently described include the removal of the organ from the east nave and the subsequent instrument-free liturgical tradition.

Current Status/Location

A historical event whose legacy endures in physical absences within the Mynster and in policy language that invokes "Second Sack reforms."