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Writer: Zhul
Date Fri Jan 16 14:35:57 2026
To All Scorn (Imm RP)
Subject Voices
Heavy breaths and grunting. Cold leaves cut his skin. The nameless
orcling runs.
Chest burning. Legs shake but keep moving. Stopping means pain and death.
He does not know the word for death, but he knows to run from it.
The trees make shapes around him. Bad shapes. He ducks low under a branch
just as another branch snaps behind him. Then the noises come. Too many
noises.
He doesnt hear it through pointed ears. He hears it inside his head. Rough
sounds. Hot sounds. The push and scrape and crush. The nameless little
orcling whimpers and stumbles, hands on his temples, trying to stop it. It
doesnt stop. It follows him everywhere he steps.
Run.
He crashes through a bush. Thorns scrape his skin. Other noises mix in.
Noises like he makes. Noises like home. Noises like fear. Some noises are
crying. Some are grunting. Some suddenly stop. The stopping is wrong.
Past the bush, he trips and hits the ground. Dirt in his mouth and on his
small growing tusks. A shadow crosses over him. The orcling presses into
the dirt. Still. The shadow makes noises his ears dont know but he
understands them anyway.
Ahead. Left. Missed. Again.
His head hurts. He grits his teeth to keep from crying out.
Then the noise pulls back one piece at a time. Gone. Gone. Gone. All he
hears is the his own stampeding heart beat.
He stays there, unmoving. Unmoving until the forest fills with the chirps
of morning birds. Small sounds. Safe sounds. Sounds that are coming
through his ears and not his head.
The orcling uncurls. His feet hurt. Red dots dripping along the leaves as
he moves. He doesnt understand why theyre there.
He walks slowly. Carefully. Deeper into the trees where even the noise
cannot reach him.
Hes alive. He doesnt know the word for it.
Writer: Crelius
Date Fri Jan 16 22:02:36 2026
To All Chaos Malachive Geirhart ( IMM RP )
Subject The Remnant
The chamber was a reliquary of ever shifting energies, a confluence of
unstable etheric forces that folded and unfolded in a dance of perpetual
transformation. Fractal patterns formed and dissolved ceaselessly, creating
new configurations that spiraled and splintered before collapsing into
themselves.
The floor droned with a labyrinth of glyphs that burned with phantom
radiance, their patterns shifting in kaleidoscopic flux, where eight pointed
stars blossomed from the chaos continuously before unraveling into
incomprehensible sigils. The walls were formed of a preternatural, glacial
substance, exuding prismatic mists that fluttered and undulated. From these
iridescent vapors rose transient and nightmarish apparitions. Gibbering
forms that flickered between reality and dream.
Encircling the chamber, massive metal doorways stood like shadow pocked
monoliths, their surfaces crawling with shifting runes that flared with a
pestilent light. These gateways paid no heed to the feeble constraints of
space, appearing at ground level and spiraling upwards into the towering
heights of the vault.
Scattered throughout the vastness, ghostly tendrils of cerulean, crimson,
and alabaster energy coiled around various objects, ensnaring them in
cocoons of invisible force. Suspended within these arcane prisons were
artifacts frozen in stasis like husks imprisoned in ice. A magenta hued and
diamond shaped gem levitated, its surface shifting through dimensions,
vanishing and reappearing in passing instants as though it existed in
multiple planes at once. Nearby, an excised organ throbbed with vile life,
a seeping heart torn from some ineffable beast, its flesh resisting the
entropy of decay within its temporal prison. Next to this, the form of a
young woman hovered within a rectangular cube of amber glass, her body
neatly bound in interwoven chains, her state between life and death left
uncertain. Elsewhere, weapons of strange craftsmanship and tomes etched
with murmuring script hung in confinement.
At the chamber's heart stood a lone figure before an empty pedestal, his
form shrouded in a derelict robe of ebon cloth. His features were lost to
the shadow of a tattered hood, revealed only in fleeting flashes as erratic
etheric currents flared and guttered through the chamber. His face was the
aspect of a revenant. The memory of once noble features scarred and
twisted, reshaped into an echo of the faceless void. A pale hand lay
extended. Resting within it was a minuscule object of peculiar provenance.
A small cylindrical ampule of tempered glass, affixed beneath a copper
stopper engraved with a stylized "TG".
The figure regarded it through a single eye burning with ageless malice, an
orb of inky black set deep within a pit of inflamed and corrupted flesh.
His head tilted slightly. A stiff, unnatural motion imposed by the tendrils
of blighted branchlets that constricted his skull and burrowed into the
flesh of his temple and jaw. An amused sneer ghosted across his visage.
"Interesting," he spoke, his voice rasping with the cadence of one afflicted
by a welcome plague. The word drifted across the chamber as he closed his
fist, crushing the glass device within his palm. He gave no attention to
the shards that bit into his flesh, instead releasing whatever the ampule
contained into the confines of the reliquary.
Writer: Zhul
Date Sat Jan 17 05:35:39 2026
To All Scorn (Imm RP)
Subject The Man with the Fire
Hunger became his only company. It woke with him, it followed him, it
curled in his belly and clawed upward through his body until his hands
shook.
The orcling ate roots that tasted like dirt. He chewed bark that ground
into dirty bits around his mouth. Sometimes he would find insects large
enough to moisten his mouth but it was never enough.
Tonight the smell found him at dusk.
Smoke. Fat. Burnt meat.
The orcling stopped walking. He couldnt get away from this. He had to find
it. His mouth was already filled with spit. His stomach twisted hard
enough to hurt. He moved slowly and carefully. The ground was packed here.
Packed meant others.
Hoof shapes. Trampled. The orcling stepped where there were still leaves
on the ground. He kept low, breathing shallow. His ribs showed through his
skin now. His tusks ached as they grew. The noises in his head were quiet,
but there was one shape there.
Alert. Still... Too still.
A sound snapped behind him.
Stop!
The orcling froze. The word didnt mean anything to him, but the sound did.
He turned around. The man stood behind him, spear raised. The sharp thing
pointed at the orclings chest. The mans eyes were steady.
The orcling bared his teeth, legs coiled, ready to run or die. But the stab
never came.
Instead the man lowered the spear inch by inch until the tip dug into the
dirt. The orcling was so focused on the tip of the spear he didnt notice
the mans hand digging into a pouch until the hand came back out with a chunk
of meat. The meat hit the earth in front of the orclings feet.
The hunger moved him.
In one movemen he snatched the meat and backed away a few paces, eyeing the
man while he nearly swallowed the whole chunk without even chewing. Grease
ran down his chin. The man did nothing.
Night settled, and the orcling stayed on the edge of the firelight, watching
the man with a loose dagger in his hand. The man would only glance at him
so often, then gaze elsewhere for a time. Like he was still checking to see
if the orcling was around.
Morning came. The orcling did not leave.
Writer: Archyle
Date Sat Jan 17 08:27:34 2026
To All Imm RP
Subject Descending
Archyle rode ahead of the others, as he had done for years, when coin had
bought his loyalty. The village lay where it always had, its roofs sagging
beneath the slow work of time. At dusk it should have been alive with small
sounds. Fires being coaxed to life. Doors closing. Voices raised in tired
argument or laughter.
There was none of that today.
He drew rein at the village edge and listened. The silence was stale, as if
something had pressed down upon the place and smothered every sound beneath
it. Even the insects were gone. His horse shifted uneasily beneath him,
snorting once, then going still.
Archyle dismounted.
The ground inside the village was hard-packed, the dust settled and
undisturbed. The first corpse lay facedown near the road, one arm bent
beneath him at an awkward angle. Another lay farther on, sprawled against a
wall darkened by soot and something worse. Then more appeared, one after
another, until the path itself seemed paved with the dead.
Some had been killed cleanly, throats opened or skulls split with practiced
hands. Others bore wounds that spoke of frenzy. Stone walls were cracked
and blackened, as if heat had passed through them from within, leaving no
flame behind. The air carried a sharp, acrid scent that stung the nose.
Burning stone.
He moved through the village at a measured pace, eyes tracking details out
of long habit. Footprints pressed deep into the earth. Drag marks leading
away from the houses. Blood worked into the dust by many feet, not fleeing,
but gathering. The trail led past the last of the homes and toward a low
rise of rock overlooking the fields beyond.
The air grew heavier as he climbed.
A shrine had been cut into the stone there, crude in shape but made with
care. The symbols were unfamiliar, carved deep and uneven, as though those
who made them had worked in haste or devotion, or both. Bodies lay within
the recess, arranged rather than discarded. These had not been caught
unawares. They had knelt. They had offered themselves.
Something else lay among them.
It had been alive once. That much could not be denied. Beyond that, its
shape resisted sense. Its flesh was split and burned, its form wrong in
ways that made the eye recoil even as it tried to understand. Whatever it
was, it did not belong to the world Archyle knew, and it had not died
quietly.
A sword pinned it to the stone.
The blade was black, not with rust or blood, but in its very substance, as
though it had been cut from night itself. It swallowed the light that
touched it. The hilt was worn smooth by countless hands, the leather of the
grip cracked and dark with age.
Archyle stepped closer.
The shrine seemed to fade around him. The dead no longer mattered. The air
stopped around him and the world narrowed to the blade before him.
Then he heard a voice. A voice soothing and terrifying All the same. But
the voice didn't come to his ears, it came to his mind as though it had
pierced this very thoughts.
And it spoke a single word.
Writer: Blinx
Date Sat Jan 17 12:30:45 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Sat Jan 17 12:37:33 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Sat Jan 17 12:44:21 2026
Writer: Zhul
Date Sun Jan 18 06:55:40 2026
To All (Imm RP)
Subject A Name
The man didnt leave either.
At first the orcling did not understand this. He would leave the edge of
the fire and sleep among the trees. He would return when hunger pulled him
back. The man was always there.
The man pointed at things. He made sounds.
At first the sounds meant nothing. The orcling learned by watching hands.
By copying. The sounds only mattered when they came with meat or fire.
The man struck stone against stone. It broke. Inside was white and slick.
The man made a sound.
Bone.
The orcling touched it. Hard. Sharp. Useful.
Another day the man set a loop of cord along a narrow trail. He waited.
The orcling waited too. Something small stepped through it. The loop
pulled tight. The thing kicked and screamed and then did not.
The man made another sound.
Trap.
The sound stayed because it fed him.
The man repeated sounds often. He did not raise his voice when the orcling
did not answer. Then the orcling started making sounds, too.
Fire. Water. Knife.
The orcling learned which sounds burned and which ones filled his mouth.
At night the noises in his head stayed thin. The mans thoughts were slow.
They stayed where they were placed. The orcling did not know why this was
different. He only knew it did not hurt.
One night rain came hard and the fire struggled. The man cursed softly and
fed it. The orcling copied him, pushing wood into flame until it held.
The man laughed.
The sound startled the orcling.
The man pointed at himself and tapped his chest.
Harlon.
Later the man pointed at the orcling. He waited.
The orcling bared his teeth. He did not know what the man meant.
The man watched him for a long moment. A thought brushed the orclings mind.
Light. Careful.
The man made a new sound.
Zhul.
The man used the sound when he wanted the orcling close. When he wanted him
to stop. When he placed a blade in his hand and showed him how to hold it
without cutting himself.
The orcling did not speak the sound.
He learned more. How to cut clean. How to wait. How to move without
sound. The forest felt smaller now. Shaped.
One night the orcling dreamed of running.
This time, he made the sound in his dream.
Zhul.
Writer: Pror
Date Mon Jan 19 15:44:20 2026
Writer: Hadni
Date Mon Jan 19 18:58:55 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Mon Jan 19 20:04:18 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Mon Jan 19 20:08:37 2026
Writer: Ezrianne
Date Mon Jan 19 21:42:53 2026
Writer: Zhul
Date Tue Jan 20 14:13:36 2026
To All Imm RP
Subject Fire in the open
The village had smelled wrong long before the flames took it.
Rot and smoke clung to the air, old refuse ground into the earth by too many
feet. Beneath it All lay fear. Zhul felt that first, a tightening behind
the eyes as too many minds pressed too close together. The noises in his
head were thin but restless.
He stayed on Harlons left.
That was how hed been taught.
The scream came sudden and high, cut short like a snapped rope.
Fire answered it.
Flames raced along the thatch, orange and snapping, shadows breaking loose
and running wild. The noises crashed into Zhul All at once. Panic. Pain.
The sharp animal terror of men who knew they were about to die.
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed.
Leaves cutting skin. Dirt in his mouth. Breath tearing his chest.
Run.
The old thought rose fast and hot. Zhul clenched his jaw and swallowed it
down.
Harlon drew steel and stepped forward.
Zhul widened, watching the dark places Harlon could not. A man burst from a
doorway, blade raised. Harlon met him head-on. Steel rang.
Another shape moved behind them.
Zhul felt it before he saw it. Greedy. Certain.
He kicked a clay jar aside. It shattered, oil spreading slick across the
dirt. The man lunged, slipped, and Zhul shoved him hard into the fire. The
scream was brief.
They moved on.
Smoke thickened. Animals broke loose and ran shrieking through the lanes.
Another man rushed Harlon. Zhul pulled down a line of drying skins,
tangling the attacker long enough for Harlon to cut him clean.
Fire climbed higher. Roofs cracked and fell. The village sounded like the
forest had that night long agotoo loud, too close, too many endings pressing
in at once.
Zhuls hands shook.
He forced them still.
A burning beam fell from a roof. Zhul caught it and swung low, pain flaring
white as it smashed into a mans legs. Fire took the rest.
After that, the flames finished what they began.
Zhul stood in the smoke, breath rasping, the noises thinning as minds fled
or fell silent.
Harlon leaned on his sword, blood darkening his sleeve. He watched Zhul as
he caught his breath, eyes narrow, weighing.
There was no pride in his eyes, never any gratitude after a fight. There
was only assessment.
Harlon wiped his blade clean on a dead mans cloak. He pressed his fist to
his chest.
Harlon.
Then he pointed at Zhul.
Zhul
The words were flat, like commands given to a hound that had done its work
well.
Harlon turned away to search the bodies.
Zhul straightened slowly. The fire crackled behind him. The screams were
gone.
He did not run.
Writer: Ezrianne
Date Tue Jan 20 14:23:26 2026
Writer: Zhul
Date Fri Jan 23 12:32:58 2026
To All Imm RP
Subject What Men Do
Time had passed, though Zhul could not have said how much.
The road had changed, and so had he. His shoulders were broader now, his
stride longer, his hands steadier when he walked. Hunger still lived in
him, but it no longer ruled him. He knew how to wait. He knew how to
watch. He knew a handful of words, learned the hard way and never
forgotten.
Enough words for what his future held.
They left the burned village far behind, its blackened ribs swallowed by
weeds and desolation. The road they followed pressed deep into the earth by
generations of wagons hauling grain, hides, and flesh. Zhul walked two
paces behind Harlon, where he had been taught to walk. Close enough to be
seen. Far enough to be kept.
By afternoon the forest closed in again. Branches reached toward one
another overhead, knitting the sky into narrow strips of light. The air
cooled. Zhul felt his body ease as the trees gathered around them. Forest
meant cover. Roads meant eyes.
Near dusk, the smell reached him.
Smoke. Grease. Meat.
His steps slowed. Hunger stirred, sharp and old, though he had eaten that
morning. Harlon did not slow. He stepped into the firelight as if the camp
had been set there for his sake.
Two wagons stood by the road. A cookfire burned low between them. Men sat
close together with their backs to the trees, weapons near at hand, eyes
already lifting as Harlon approached. Horses stamped and snorted, ribs
showing through dull hides.
The men looked at Harlon.
Then they looked past him.
Their eyes rested on Zhul.
There was surprise in their eyes.
Harlon spoke easily, his voice calm and practiced. Zhul recognized the
tone. It was the voice Harlon used when trading skins, when asking after
roads, when setting terms. Zhul did not know every word, but some had
weight now.
Strong, one of the men said.
Another leaned forward, squinting. Good size.
Zhul felt something tighten in his chest. Something familiar.
Harlon's mouth curved, just slightly. Trained, he said.
The word struck harder than a blade ever had.
Hands moved. One man reached into a pouch. There came a soft, bright
sound. Metal touching metal.
Zhul watched Harlons body, not his face. He saw the shift in his stance,
small but certain. A foot turned. A shoulder angled.
Toward him.
The way men stood when animals were close to bolting.
Old memories rose unbidden. Rope biting into skin. Wooden rails slick with
filth. Orcs pressed together until breathing became work. Voices loud with
laughter and command.
Sell. Hold. Move.
He had not understood those words then but he understood them now.
Harlon glanced back to be sure Zhul was still there.
One of the men jerked his chin toward him. Worth it, he said.
Harlon did not answer. He did not need to.
The fire crackled. Fat hissed in the pan. The forest waited just beyond
the reach of the light, dark and close and endless.
And Zhul understood, fully and finally, what was being decided.
He was being sold.
Just as his people had been sold before him.
Writer: Blinx
Date Fri Jan 23 13:40:08 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Fri Jan 23 14:01:12 2026
Writer: Zhul
Date Sat Jan 24 15:20:54 2026
To All Imm RP
Subject No pens, No chains
Zhul ran.
He didn't wait to see who followed. He didn't look back at the firelight,
the wagons, the men. His feet found the path before his mind did, and then
there was only the forest rushing to meet him.
Behind him, a voice called out.
Zhul!
The sound cut through the trees sharp and familiar. It pulled at him like a
hook in the gut. He stumbled once, nearly fell, and for a heartbeat his
legs slowed. The voice came closer now.
The forest answered with noise of its own. Branches snapping. Leaves
tearing at his skin. Breath hammering in his chest. The sounds inside his
head swelled, pressing hard and wild, just as they had long ago.
Run.
The word was gone, but the command remained.
Zhul ran harder.
He heard pursuit then. Not close. Not far. Enough to keep the old fear
sharp. He did not know how many followed him, only that they did. Hunters
always did.
The night folded in around him.
He ran until the ground softened and rose again. Until his lungs burned and
his legs shook. Until thought gave way to motion and motion to pain. When
he fell, he crawled. When he could stand again, he ran.
The voice followed for a time, but faded.
Zhul didn't stop when the forest went quiet. He moved until dawn crept pale
and thin through the branches, until the sounds in his head thinned and
stretched and left him hollow.
Days passed.
He ate what he could. Slept where he dropped. The forest carried him south
without asking his name. Sometimes he heard voices and hid. Sometimes he
heard nothing and kept walking anyway.
The name stayed with him.
Zhul.
When the trees finally thinned and stone rose ahead, he stopped at the edge
of the road and stared.
Walls, old ones. Scarred and darkened by age. Towers rose above them,
taller than anything he'd ever seen. The city beyond breathed smoke and
shadow, spice and rot, voices layered thick and unashamed.
People seemed to move freely here. Not quietly or fearfully. Orcs, humans,
others. Shapes he didn't know. None of them turned at his passing with
ropes in their hands.
No pens. No chains.
Zhul stepped forward.
The forest didn't call him back.
He passed beneath the gates of Verminasia and into the city, carrying fear,
memory, and a name that had been tested and broken and chosen again.
The nameless one was gone.
What remained walked on.
Writer: Ezrianne
Date Sat Jan 24 15:57:42 2026
Writer: Ezrianne
Date Sat Jan 24 16:02:16 2026
Writer: Ezrianne
Date Sat Jan 24 16:04:53 2026
Writer: Tylardes
Date Sat Jan 24 16:45:52 2026
Writer: Tylardes
Date Sat Jan 24 16:49:58 2026
Writer: Tylardes
Date Sat Jan 24 16:54:30 2026
Writer: Tylardes
Date Sat Jan 24 17:47:36 2026
Writer: Tylardes
Date Sat Jan 24 17:48:34 2026
Writer: Ryger
Date Thu Jan 29 00:51:56 2026
To All Chaos ( IMM RP )
Subject The Suffering of Ryger
Ryger, who lived carefree life and who has been known to be fickle when
it comes to landing on a profession, was shut out from the Warp. The Lord
Waaagh ordered penance to be paid and Chaos to be spread, penalizing Ryger
with a two week barring from the Warp. During that time, Ryger was to kill
ten foes and delve into the Uunderworld to thwart the advancement of
Bloodlust.
At first, Ryger was flusterd and annoyed with the task, but as he sat in his
home and pondered his life, he realized that Chaos was the only thing that
set his life in full motion. It was the only thing that he ever worked hard
for, and the only place where he felt like he was fulfiling a true purpose.
The Ariel suppressed his feelings and got to work.
The first of the Slayings began where he was most comfortable, the ocean.
Luring his victims and trapping them with the Aboleth, Ryger quickly made
short work of his prey. When the daunting tasks completion finally seemed
achievable, Ryger set off to hell to find the fiery portal of the
Underworld. Two members of the Hoard fell to Ryger in the underdark. The
first was unnaware and caught off guard, the second was slain in the ocean
after being assaulted aboard of the Agility.
During Ryger's down time, he reflected on his journey and his time away from
the Warp. The true meaning of Suffering began to swell in his mind. Being
forced into uncomfortability is where true growth comes from. To be
miserable in suffering allowed him to see the finality of his truth.
Avoiding responsibility and being fickle have hindered him. To be strong,
he must suffer, embrace it, and then learn from it. To suffer is to grow.
At the end of the two weeks, Ryger achieved his task and exceeded
expectations. In total, thirteen victims fell to Ryger during his shunning.
It is now time for him to return to the Warp and begin his next task. The
undoing of a god.
Writer: Tief
Date Thu Jan 29 10:26:38 2026
To All imm religion tortoises groundhogs
Subject A Gnome Walks into the Wilderness, Episode 4: Oddities
Stooping low, the gnome ran his bare fingers across the soft moss. The
landscape around him looked nothing like he had expected. Not a chaotic
shamble of rock and debris. Not a plain blasted flat. It looked like
craggy hills, nothing unusual for southeast Arkania.
But it was unusual.
The moss, for example, lifted wispy tendrils that followed his fingers. It
glowed faintly in the dusklight, like many of the other flora the gnome
observed. Leaves splitting in fantastical ways. Bark running up trees in
strange patterns - horizontal ridges, hexagonal plates, spirals. He
listened for bird calls and heard nothing familiar. The land was adapting,
and adapting quickly.
Not All the changes were beneficial, the gnome noted. Perhaps a third of
the plants he passed were sickly, poisoned from above and below at the same
time. The gnome stumbled more than once on burrows, far too plentiful to
have come from run-of-the-mill groundhogs. The processes at work - natural,
magical, and otherwise - were in deep conflict. What would become of this
biome, the gnome had only a vague notion. But he was curious to see more.
Where were the larger animals? Or were they All dead like the herds of elk?
They continued deeper into the moonfall, stepping further from the ordinary.
And while the gnome's eyes were focused on studying the fallout, other eyes
were focused on him.
Writer: Zhul
Date Thu Jan 29 12:33:30 2026
To All Imm RP
Subject Echoes in the Stones
Zhul spent his first days in Verminasia walking without a plan. He slept
where the noise thinned enough to rest and ate when he could afford it or
when no one minded him standing close to a fire. The city never fully
quieted. Even late at night, boots rang on stone and voices drifted out of
windows, carrying arguments, jokes, and deals that didnt concern him.
He stayed near walls out of habit. No one chased him for it. People
looked, but only long enough to place him, then went back to what they were
doing. That took time to trust.
Near a cart with a cracked wheel, two men argued over a sack that smelled of
grain. One shook it and frowned. The other dropped coins into his hand,
the metal clinking dully. The first man nodded and Zhul heard .. Price..
Then handed the sack over. When they left, Zhul noticed a coin near the
wheel and picked it up.
Price meant an exchange. Coin for something else.
Later, hunger drew him to a cookfire. A woman stood behind a table with a
ladle in hand. A man reached for a bowl too soon. She smacked his wrist
and told him to pay first. He grumbled but set coins down. Only then did
she pass him the bowl.
When Zhul stepped forward, he put his coin down first.
Pay first worked.
At a wider crossing, two men spoke in low voices. One kept glancing down
the street. Before their voices rose, another man stepped into view wearing
dull mail and carrying a short spear. He didnt speak. The argument
stopped. The men walked off quickly. The one with the spear stayed a
moment longer, then moved on.
Zhul waited before crossing.
Guard meant someone watched, even when they said nothing.
As days passed, the city made more sense. Which doors stayed open late.
Which alleys smelled wrong. Which streets emptied when certain boots passed
through. He didnt catch every word, but he learned enough by watching what
followed them. Near morning, he heard something different. Not shouting or
trade. Voices, low and steady, many of them together.
He followed the sound east.
The streets opened there. Stone columns rose outside the city gates. Smoke
hung thick but didnt burn the eyes. People gathered without crowding. Some
stood. Some knelt. No one blocked the way. No one watched hands.
Zhul followed the active people to a temple. He wandered inside quietly. A
man knelt before carved stone and spoke softly. A woman rested her forehead
on the ground and stayed there. Others stood nearby with their eyes closed.
Zhul stopped at the edge.
No one told him to leave.
The noise inside his head eased, the way it sometimes did deep in the forest
when nothing hunted and nothing was hunted.
He didnt know what they were doing.
But he stayed, listening, learning words that werent meant for buying or
selling.
Writer: Zhul
Date Thu Jan 29 12:51:25 2026
To All Imm RP
Subject Echoes in the Stones II
Zhul kept going back to the temple east of Verminasia.
At first, he told himself it was just another place where no one chased him
off. The doors stayed open. The guards at the edges didnt care if he stood
and watched. No one asked his name or his business. He could come and go
without comment.
He went in the mornings, when the stone was still cool and the air smelled
faintly of smoke and old incense. He went at night, when voices echoed
longer and footsteps carried farther. He stood against walls and listened.
People spoke differently here.
They didnt bargain. They didnt threaten. They didnt hurry their words the
way traders did. Some spoke softly, almost to themselves. Others spoke
with confidence, like they were being heard whether anyone answered or not.
Zhul learned words there.
Words used the same way, over and over. Words of pleading, of thanking, of
respect and devotion.
He watched people kneel. Some pressed their foreheads to the stone. Some
held their hands together. Some didnt move at all. He copied none of it.
He only watched.
The temple had many rooms.
Each held a statue. Some were large and dark, carved with sharp lines and
cruel faces. Others were worn smooth by time and hands. People moved
between them with purpose, never stopping long in the wrong place.
Zhul learned which rooms emptied quickly, which filled, which drew whispers
even after people left.
He noticed the room with murals of great battles, wandering into it without
knowing why.
The statue wasnt the largest. It didnt loom. It didnt threaten. It stood
apart from the others. People entered alone more often there. They stayed
longer. When they left, they didnt look relieved. They looked determined.
Zhul began standing near that doorway.
He listened to what people said when they came out. Some spoke of
restraint. Others of control. Words about holding back what could easily
be used. No one raised their voice there.
Weeks passed.
Zhul knew the patterns now. When to come without drawing looks. Where to
stand so he wouldnt be in the way. Which hours brought fewer people. Hed
learned enough words to follow fragments of meaning, enough to know when
someone was asking and when someone was thanking.
One night, the room was empty.
The lamps burned low. The stone floor held the days warmth. Zhul stood at
the threshold for a long time, waiting for the feeling that usually told him
to move on.
It didnt come.
He stepped inside.
Zhul stood there, unsure what to do with his hands. He remembered kneeling.
Remembered bowed heads. He lowered himself to one knee, awkward and stiff,
like someone copying a task without knowing its purpose.
He didn't know the words to say, so he spoke the ones he did know.
Nothing answered.
Still, the noise in his head eased. Just a little.
Zhul stayed there until the lamps dimmed further and footsteps sounded in
the hall. When he rose, his legs felt steadier than they had when he
entered.
He didn't know if he did it right, but he came back the next day.
And the day after that...
Writer: Zhul
Date Thu Jan 29 13:08:57 2026
Writer: Vaelsenathox
Date Fri Jan 30 11:04:22 2026
To All Tief ( Verminasia Black_Robes Imm Dragoth )
Subject Moonfall: Where Foolish Gnomes Tread
The wind buffeted Blightwing's scales as he made his patrol over the
lunited scarred landscape. While some areas remained untainted by the
corrupted lunite meteors, some had sustained impacts that left trails and
large gashes within the landscape. Each patrol increased the Green's anger.
He fumed at how Chaos has tainted the very Rot his Lord was to bring upon
the world. His wrath at how the Warp became it's own pestilence. No
greater affront was there to His lord, only the pride of the elves would
come close. Pride that their Blessed Goddess controlled His Rot and gifts
within Her sacred cycle.
His reptilian orbs scanned the ground below and low there was the small
little figure once more within the forests of Arkania.
'Poor little lost gnome. What do you seek in these forests, hmm? ' mused
the dragon to himself. The dragon circled high above, his interest keen on
this being. So few dared to travel in the woods. Yet how brave or foolish
was this gnome to not realize the danger he was in. He watched the gnome
bend down then stand up and continue walking. However, the dragon spotted a
lunite corrupted creature on the other side of the tree line. A boar as
large as a horse stamped it's hooves and circled around in it's madness.
Vaelsenathox could see the red lunite craze in it's eyes as it's swollen
form raced about. It would be only a few minutes before the gnome was
overrun.
The Firstborn known as Blightwing had but a moment to decide. Let this
gnome meet his fate or perhaps gain an ally? The boar decided to make his
decision for him as it sniffed the air and began to make towards the gnome.
Folding his wings to his side, Vaelsenathox dove through the air like a
green spear intent upon the lunite corrupted animal. The force of his
landing sending a small quake through the ground as he roared in defiance.
He snaked his head to the gnome and cried, "RUN! '
Just then the massive boar burst through the trees to engage the Firstborn
of Decay.
Writer: Blinx
Date Fri Jan 30 16:30:40 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Fri Jan 30 16:40:38 2026
Writer: Tief
Date Sat Jan 31 14:02:19 2026
To All imm religion dragons that eat gnomes
Subject A Gnome Walks into the Wilderness, Episode 5: Eaten?
The booming cry and forceful impact combined to knock the slight gnome to
the ground. There it was, a cataclysmic green dragon, and it didn't want to
eat him? At the moment?
The gnome stumbled away, tripping on his own robes. Naturally, this turned
from a stumble to a tumble down an incline. Behind, he could hear the
horrific cries of two beasts in combat - one clearly superior to the other
in strength, but perhaps not in volume. He'd been in this position before,
nearly dinner for a dragon, and did not want to finally find out what that
would be like. Even a Tinker would stick to a hypothesis for this
experiment.
So the gnome gathered himself, bruised and battered, and sought a hollow to
hide in. His scent would be heavy in the air, of course, unless he could
pray the wind blow the other direction.
No matter what, the gnome was truly afraid of being devoured. Teeth were
teeth, no matter the mouth.
Writer: Hindera
Date Sun Feb 1 21:28:06 2026
To All Ganth Regyt ( Imm RP Religion Raije Kantilles )
Subject The Return of Belief - Raije and Kantilles
The chapel was nearly empty, its candles burning low, their light
struggling against the gathering dusk. Regyt stood near the altar of
Kantilles with his hands folded and his eyes distant, as if listening for
something that no longer answered. I leaned against a stone pillar opposite
him, the sigil of Raije heavy at my chest.
"Its quiet, " Regyt said at last. "Too quiet. There was a time this place
never slept. "
"People still pass through, " I replied. "They just dont stay. "
Regyt gave a thin smile. "Because belief has become words that are recited,
not lived. " He turned to face me. "Kantilles taught us to walk with
wisdom, to forgive, to teach, and to uplift. But wisdom is ignored when the
world is desperate. Compassion is mistaken for weakness. "
I crossed my arms. "Raije would say the world does not lack wisdom. It
lacks resolve. Loyalty fractures. Courage fails. Victory feels
unfashionable. " I paused. "People want comfort without commitment. "
Regyt nodded slowly. "Your god forges soldiers. Mine shapes souls. "
"And yet, " I said, pushing off the pillar, "both stand in half empty halls.
"
Silence settled between us, broken only by the soft crackle of a candle.
Regyt gestured to the worn stone floor. "Once, people followed because they
saw the Light in us, in how we lived. Now they hear sermons and see nothing
change. "
"Then sermons are not the problem, " I said. "Cowardice is. Hypocrisy is.
" I met his gaze. "No one follows a banner that never leaves the hall. No
one trusts a priest who speaks of sacrifice but risks nothing. "
Regyt exhaled. "Kantilles asks us to be an example, to give freely, and to
forgive freely. But the world is cruel, and kindness alone does not stop
it. "
"Nor does steel without purpose, " I answered. "Raije does not call us to
chaos. He calls us to win, but with loyalty to one another and with courage
that others can lean on. " I tapped my chest. "People follow strength when
it protects them. "
Regyt stepped closer, the candlelight catching his eyes. "Then perhaps this
is how faith returns. Not by demanding belief, but by earning it. You
stand when others flee. I remain when others falter. You defend. I heal.
"
"A sword and a soul, " I said quietly.
He smiled, this time with warmth. "The Light was never meant to be one
thing. "
I looked around the empty chapel, imagining it full again, not with
worshippers repeating prayers, but with people watching, learning, and
deciding. "Faith does not need to be resurrected, " I said. "It needs to
be demonstrated. "
Regyt inclined his head. "Then let us stop asking why religion is dying.
"
"And start showing them why it is worth living for. "
The candles burned on, small but stubborn, refusing the dark, and for the
first time in a long while, neither of us felt alone in the silence.
Writer: Tephysea
Date Sun Feb 1 21:47:14 2026
Writer: Tephysea
Date Sun Feb 1 21:54:22 2026
Writer: Tephysea
Date Sun Feb 1 22:01:35 2026
Writer: Vaelsenathox
Date Tue Feb 3 10:16:47 2026
To Tief All Imm ( Dragoth Religion )
Subject Moonfall: Strange Bedfellows
Vaelsenathox saw the gnome topple from the corner of his eye which was
just enough for the lunite corrupted boar to find purchase under his scales
with a tusk. Irritated at his own mistake, he struck out with a raking claw
across the beast's face sending it crashing to his left. Blood dripped from
the dragon's wound but it was of little concern. Blightwing would have his
revenge upon the Chaos animal.
The boar shook it's mane, the lunite taint had caused it's hair to become
thicker and spike like. Crimson eyes filled with hate matched similar green
orbs as the two began to stalk each other. However, the Green had little
time for games even with his food. The dragon breathed in air and then
exhaled a cloud of green gas directly into the boar's face. The beast shook
it's head like it has been stricken. Futile huffs came from it as the
poison began to work into it's system.
Sensing an opening, Vaelsenathox struck with his maw at the back neck of the
boar, clamping down and placing All his weight into this one bite. The boar
stuggled but the tusks waved in futility. Without speed nor it's natural
weapons, the boar was defenseless. A claw came down tearing away a leg. A
squeal and more tossing from the boar but it was over. Slowly the life
blood drained from the corrupted beast.
When All was silent, the dragon removed it's jaw and let the body drop to
the ground. Blood still dripping from the fresh wound, he turned his body
to regard the gnome form behind him.
'You wander in places few tread, gnome. Who are you and why do you come
here? I shall not eat you.. If that is your fear. I am called Blightwing
in the common tongue. I grant you parley, for now. '
The dragon padded over and then settled on the ground as he murmured healing
magics to heal his wounds. His reptilian orbs studying the form before him.
Writer: Aurielle
Date Tue Feb 3 13:33:26 2026
To All (Conclave IMM RP Sebatis)
Subject {uSusurri? ({p1 of ??)
Up in the higher reaches of the Crimson Tower, there was a sound.
A {ususurrus, if one will.
And this {ususurrus, in turn, grew into a {ususurrus of {ususurruses - {ususurri? -
that grew into a discordant cacophony, as such things inevitably must. The
cacophony, in turn, rose to a proper crescendo - and then, like a drummer
who knows their task complete, instantly fell to silence.
The silence sat heavy on oaken floors. It was the kind of silence that
might, potentially, contain still-warm corpses, newly shattered glasses, or
the seeds of some greater, more terrifying chaos yet to announce itself.
The library of the Crimson Tower lay in disarray - or at least, one corner
of it. An avalanche of books had upset a plain littered with inkwells and
parchment, with notebooks and cups of tea and coffee. Everything had been
upended, leaving ink and coffee and milk to stain carpets and books and
clothes. Someone, surely, had vandalized the library with the most
malicious of intent, and yet, they were nowhere to be seen!
Ah. No. There they were.
While not-wicked, and not-a-witch, one couldn't argue the resemblance, at
least based on the feet that stuck out from under the piles. Small, dainty
feet, wrapped up in warm and fuzzy ruby-hued slippers. Accented, now, with
black blotches that certainly weren't there before.
The silence that had hung so heavily in the air was broken first by a single
sound:
"Ooooowwwwww...."
And then, of course, by another, beautiful {ususurrus. By the rasping of
tumbling pages, the thumps of falling books, and eventually, by a more mild
cacophony as the pile covering the aforementioned not-wicked, not-a-witch,
yet-still-buried figured simply fell away, toppling and claiming the only
still-standing cups of coffee and ink.
Aurielle blinked, and peered about.
"What year is it?" She muttered to herself, rubbing her curly hair with a
hand.
A voice vibrated in her head, catching her off guard.
"Salutations, Student. Would you like to duel?"
And with that, as promised, true chaos was once more released - as the
littlest (non-pixie) mage of the Conclave wandered out of the library for
the first time in many, many years.
Writer: Blinx
Date Tue Feb 3 16:16:21 2026
Writer: Tief
Date Thu Feb 5 12:18:51 2026
To yet imm All religion vaelsenathox tortoise
Subject A Gnome Walks into the Wilderness, Episode 6: Nope, Not Eaten
The gnome straightened his soiled robes as best he could. Grass-stained,
dust-stained, muddied - he probably looked like a human child gone rolling
down a hill in mother's best linens.
Shaken by near-death, he still remembered his etiquette. A small bow and
the proper salutation go a long way with someone the size of a house.
'Good day to you, Firstborn. You ride the winds with fearsome grace.'
The gnome paused half a moment, then explained himself to the behemoth.
'I am Tief, a gnome of my Lady Turpa and the Mother Zandreya. I came to
find the Red Moon. It-'
He reflexively rubbed the side of his head. The eternal migraine was a
constant companion.
'The Moon does not belong down here.'
Writer: Melchaleve
Date Thu Feb 5 18:30:02 2026
Writer: Melchaleve
Date Fri Feb 6 08:04:22 2026
Writer: Sorien
Date Fri Feb 6 12:33:30 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Sat Feb 7 18:49:37 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Sat Feb 7 19:02:51 2026
Writer: Vaelsenathox
Date Mon Feb 9 13:08:35 2026
To Tief All Religion ( Imm )
Subject Moonfall: That Which Does Not Belong
The Green moved his head to one side and fixed a green orb upon the
gnome. A snort of chlorine gas puffed out and was swiftly taken by the
wind.
'Your name is known, Eldest of the Gray and Winds. While your words ring
true, here lie the moonstones, cracked and broken. '
Vaelsenathox looked over the wound which was now healing if only slowly.
His eyes saw know threats at the moment but in the wilds nothing was
assured.
'The stones have.. Changed the creatures of this area much like the cursed
forest west of Shalonesti. No longer will you find things as you might
expect. Knowledge here will be gained only by those prepared to fight for
it. Are you willing, Windspeaker? '
The green reptilian eye watched the gnome to see just what kind of fortitude
this small being had. Few agents of any nation or religion wandered these
forests and if Vaelsenathox was to reverse the decline, he would need
allies. While this small gnome may not look like a Champion, his name and
position in the Church of Zandreya carried respect. This was not a morsel..
This was a gift.
Writer: Frederyk
Date Thu Feb 12 12:06:04 2026
Writer: Erindor
Date Thu Feb 12 23:57:27 2026
Writer: Erindor
Date Fri Feb 13 00:00:07 2026
Writer: Erindor
Date Fri Feb 13 00:02:08 2026
Writer: Frederyk
Date Fri Feb 13 06:19:33 2026
Writer: Pyrsas
Date Sat Feb 14 12:53:22 2026
Writer: Alburto
Date Sun Feb 15 22:38:29 2026
To All Verminasia RP Drakkara
Subject The Worst Thief in Algoron
Alburto Ocasio-Delacroix was known in Algoron for exactly one thing, and
even that was said with a smirk. If thieves had a ranking board, his name
would have been carved at the bottom, not for lack of ambition, but for an
almost supernatural talent for failure.
Tonight was supposed to be simple.
The mark was a modest merchant, wealthy enough to be worth the risk,
careless enough to leave a window unlatched. Alburto had watched the house
for hours, crouched in an alley that smelled of old rain and rot, his
clothes already stained with the grime of the city. His hands shook as he
waited, eyes wide and darting, jumping at every distant footstep, every
scrape of stone.
When the street finally emptied, he moved.
The window gave way with a soft creak that sounded, to Alburto's ears, like
a trumpet blast. He froze, breath caught, heart pounding hard enough that
he was certain it could be heard from inside the house. Nothing happened.
No shout. No light. Encouraged, he hauled himself in, boots slipping on
the sill, landing inside with far more noise than he intended.
He stood there, listening, sweat and dirt streaking down his pale skin.
The room was dark, but he knew what he was after. A small lockbox. Easy to
carry. Easier still to open, or so he had told himself. He found it
beneath a table and lifted it, grinning despite the nervous twitch in his
face.
Then the lock clicked.
Not open. Locked tighter.
Alburto swallowed and worked his tools, hands clumsy, fingers trembling.
The picks slipped. One snapped with a sharp metallic crack that echoed far
too loudly. His eyes went wider still, darting toward the doorway as a
floorboard creaked somewhere above.
Panic set in.
He fumbled faster, sweat dripping onto the box, tools clattering softly onto
the floor. The lock refused him. It was stubborn, unyielding, almost
mocking. When footsteps began descending the stairs, Alburto made his
decision.
He ran.
In his haste, he tripped over the very lockbox he had failed to open,
sending it skidding across the floor with a loud crash. He slammed into the
window frame, scraping skin and tearing fabric, then spilled out into the
alley in a heap of limbs and curses.
Behind him, a shout rang out. A lantern flared.
Alburto did not look back. He sprinted blindly through the streets, breath
ragged, heart hammering, eyes wild. By the time he collapsed behind a stack
of crates, empty-handed and shaking, the night had swallowed the sounds of
pursuit.
Later, as dawn crept over Algoron, Alburto Ocasio-Delacroix sat in the dirt,
staring at his trembling hands. He had scouted, planned, and risked
everything, only to fail at the single craft he claimed as his own.
And somewhere in the city, a merchant locked his window a little tighter,
never knowing that the worst thief in Algoron had paid him a visit and lost
to a simple lock.
Writer: Alburto
Date Sun Feb 15 22:51:37 2026
To All Verminasia RP Drakkara
Subject Just Another Bowl of Browns
Alburto Ocasio-Delacroix did not aim high. High aims had a way of
noticing him.
Tonight, he settled for low shelves and careless sacks. A back door left
ajar behind a tavern, a pantry that smelled of old fat and damp grain. He
slipped inside with wide, jittering eyes and a breath held too long, fingers
already smudging whatever they touched. Nothing gleamed. Nothing locked.
That alone felt like a blessing.
He gathered what he could without thinking too hard. A handful of dried
roots. A scoop of coarse meal spilled into his pocket. A heel of bread
hard enough to bruise. He paused, listening, then added a pinch of salt
from a cracked jar, spilling more than he meant to the floor. No alarm
came. No shout followed.
Outside, he crouched in the alley and counted his prizes like they might
vanish if he did not. Enough. Barely, but enough.
Later, over a small fire fed with broken crate slats, Alburto boiled water
until it went cloudy. The roots softened. The meal thickened into
something that could politely be called a stew if one squinted. He crumbled
the bread into it and stirred, grimacing at the smell. Salt helped. Not
much, but some.
He ate slowly, wincing, then smiling despite himself. It was brown and
lumpy and tasted of survival rather than comfort. It did not poison him.
It did not run away. For Alburto Ocasio-Delacroix, worst thief in Algoron,
that counted as success.
He licked the spoon clean and slept with a full belly, already forgetting
how close he had come to nothing at all.
Writer: Alburto
Date Mon Feb 16 12:06:12 2026
To All Verminasia RP Drakkara
Subject What Seems To Be A Bath
Alburto Alejandro-Ocasio-Delacroix entered the bathhouse of New Thalos
like a man stepping into enemy territory. Steam rolled through the stone
hall in heavy sheets, carrying the scent of hot water and clean soap, a
smell so unfamiliar to him that it put his nerves on edge. He paid his coin
quickly, eyes flicking to the attendant, already imagining judgment where
none was offered.
The heat pressed into him the moment he reached the pools. It felt
invasive, like the water meant to strip more than dirt if he allowed it. He
lowered himself in with a grimace, keeping his shoulders tense, refusing to
sink too deep. His skin darkened as grime loosened, cloudy swirls blooming
around him, and that alone made him shift uneasily.
He did not scrub everywhere.
Arms first. Forearms especially. He worked at them with rough efficiency,
rubbing until the worst of the dirt gave way and pale skin showed through.
His hands followed, nails scraped clean against the stone edge of the pool.
Then his face, careful and brief, water splashed up and wiped away sweat,
soot, and the road. He paused there, staring at his reflection in the
rippling surface, green eyes still wide, still wary.
He avoided the rest as long as he could. A quick pass over his neck. A
hurried rinse of his chest. Nothing lingering, nothing thorough. Just
enough. The sort of cleaning meant for appearances rather than comfort.
The idea of being fully clean felt wrong somehow, like wearing borrowed
clothes that did not quite fit.
When he finally stood and wrapped himself in a coarse towel, steam clung to
him, and for the first time in a long while, Alburto did not smell like the
alley he slept in. He still felt like himself though. Uneven. Half-done.
Acceptable at a glance, if not up close.
As he left the bathhouse and stepped back into the streets of New Thalos, he
told himself that this was All anyone needed. Clean enough to pass. Clean
enough to be ignored. For Alburto Alejandro-Ocasio-Delacroix, that was the
goal, and for once, he had almost reached it.
Writer: Alburto
Date Mon Feb 16 16:12:16 2026
To All Verminasia RP Drakkara
Subject The Broken Spigot
Alburto Alejandro-Ocasio-Delacroix had known it was a bad idea the moment
he heard the drip.
The den lay beneath the city, carved stone and old brick pressed together in
a way that smelled of damp age and old secrets. Vampires liked places like
this. Quiet. Hidden. Full of shadows that pretended to be empty. Alburto
liked none of it, but coin was coin, and he told himself that if he was
careful, quiet, and quick, he might walk away with something worth the risk.
Then came the sound.
Drip.
He froze, one foot hovering above the floor, eyes wide and jittering as
ever. The sound came again, steady and patient. Drip. Somewhere ahead, a
rusted spigot jutted from the wall, feeding nothing, leaking endlessly into
a shallow stone trough. The noise echoed far too well in the narrow
corridor, each drop ringing like a tiny bell.
Alburto waited. Counted his breaths. The dripping did not stop.
He tried to move with it, timing his steps between drops. Drip. Step.
Drip. Step. It worked for exactly three paces before his boot brushed
loose gravel. The stone skittered, bounced, and settled with a sound that
felt impossibly loud against the rhythm of the water.
The drip stopped.
Silence rushed in, thick and heavy. Worse than noise. Alburto's heart
hammered as he stood there, dirt-streaked and shaking, knowing that the only
thing louder than the dripping had been its sudden absence.
A voice followed, smooth and curious. Then another. Footsteps that did not
bother to hide.
Alburto ran.
He did not grab gold. He did not touch a single relic. He fled down the
corridor, slipping on damp stone, cursing the spigot, the vampires, and his
own name in equal measure. Behind him, the dripping resumed, cheerful and
uncaring, as though it had done exactly what it was meant to do.
He burst back into the night empty-handed, lungs burning, pride in tatters.
Somewhere below, the vampires returned to their den, mildly annoyed, faintly
amused.
And Alburto Alejandro-Ocasio-Delacroix added another failure to his growing
collection, All because of a leaking spigot that refused to keep quiet.
Writer: Alburto
Date Mon Feb 16 18:21:08 2026
To All Verminasia RP Drakkara
Subject The Perfect Heist
Alburto Alejandro-Ocasio-Delacroix did not come for coin this time.
The orphanage stood where it always had, pressed between newer stone and
louder streets, its walls smaller than he remembered and heavier All the
same. He slipped inside through a window he knew too well, the wood swollen
with age, the latch still forgiving. The air smelled of dust and old paper,
a scent that tugged at something low in his chest.
He moved carefully, not out of skill, but out of reverence.
The records room waited at the back, shelves bowed under the weight of
ledgers no one had opened in years. Candlelight trembled across spines
stamped with dates and numbers, names long grown or long buried. His hands
shook as he searched, not with the jitter of fear this time, but with
something slower and heavier.
He found the book.
The page was thin and yellowed, edges soft from turning. There he was, not
as a man, not even as a boy, but as an entry. A date. A time. A note
written in tidy, careful script. No flourish. No explanation. Just enough
ink to make a life official.
No mother. No father. No story.
E. Scott.
Alburto stared at the name, reading it again and again as though it might
change if he did. It did not. One letter. One word. Clean, confident,
and final. Whoever E. Scott was, they had been certain enough to leave him
here and certain enough not to say why.
The room felt colder then.
He closed the ledger with care, returning it to its place exactly as he
found it. No alarms sounded. No one came running. The orphanage kept its
silence, as it always had.
When Alburto slipped back into the night, he carried nothing in his hands,
yet the weight on him felt heavier than any lockbox. He had his answer,
such as it was. A name without a face. A beginning without an ending.
For the worst thief anyone knew, it was the cleanest theft he had ever made.
Writer: Alburto
Date Mon Feb 16 18:49:46 2026
To All Verminasia RP Drakkara ( Ezrianne )
Subject Embracing His True Name
Alburto Scott woke before dawn, the city still holding its breath. The
room he rented was small and bare, but it was clean, and that mattered more
to him than comfort. He sat on the edge of the bed and let the silence
settle, listening to his own breathing as if it belonged to someone else.
The name rested in his thoughts the way it had for days now.
Scott.
He had said it aloud once, quietly, just to hear how it sounded. It had not
changed him in that moment. It had not answered questions or softened old
memories. It had simply stayed, steady and unremarkable, and somehow that
made it heavier than All the names he had carried before.
He washed his face at the basin, watching the water darken and drain away.
The man in the reflection looked back without accusation. Not the jittering
shadow that haunted alleys, not the half-formed thing that survived by being
overlooked. Just a man with green eyes, tired but present, shoulders
squared not by confidence, but by choice.
He dried his hands and unfolded the scrap of paper on the table. The name
was written there in his own careful script. Alburto Scott. No flourish.
No titles. It felt earned precisely because it had not been given freely.
For years, he had told himself that where he came from did not matter. That
survival was enough. That knowing nothing was safer than knowing too much.
But standing there, clean and awake and painfully aware of himself, he
understood the lie in that thinking. He had not been protecting himself.
He had been avoiding himself.
He did not know who E. Scott had been. He might never know. But the name
was proof of something simple and undeniable: he had not come from nothing.
He had been placed, recorded, acknowledged, even if only briefly and without
kindness.
That was enough.
Alburto folded the paper and tucked it away, not like a treasure, but like a
reminder. When he stepped outside and the city began to stir, he walked
among others without shrinking. He did not pretend to be someone new, nor
did he cling to who he had been.
He was Alburto Scott.
And for the first time, that felt like an answer he could live with.
Writer: Tief
Date Fri Feb 20 19:49:19 2026
To All Vaelsenathox Imm Religion Turpa but also Zandreya
Subject Moonfall, Episode 1: Eaten by Time, Not a Dragon (Yet)
Blightwing. Now that was a good name for a Firstborn, thought the gnome.
Descriptive, efficient, effective. So far in the conversation, he had
neither been bitten in half nor poisoned to death. This was promising.
Their conversation - short, but elevated. He seemed to be in the Green's
territory, which was not necessarily a good thing. However, etiquette and a
genuine curiosity seemed to have staved off the dragon for at least one
meal.
The corruption the gnome has seen so far from the moonfall, it seemed, was
only a taste. How far was he willing to go to see the rest? What horror
existed that this Blightwing would have the gnome call upon allies, so they
might also see?
Left to mind themselves, gnome and tortoise stared wistfully at the oddly
colored sunset. Who could he still call upon, so many years separated from
old lives and old allegiances? This would be another interesting challenge.
Writer: Blinx
Date Sun Feb 22 09:35:29 2026
Writer: Kodn
Date Sun Feb 22 15:41:44 2026
Writer: Pror
Date Tue Feb 24 12:59:46 2026
Writer: Pror
Date Tue Feb 24 13:15:18 2026
Writer: Pror
Date Thu Feb 26 11:36:30 2026
Writer: Pror
Date Thu Feb 26 12:21:36 2026
Writer: Hindera
Date Tue Mar 3 22:29:27 2026
To All Ganth ( Imm Admin RP Raije Xenophon Croatoan )
Subject The Rise of the Empire - Part 1
The Circus of Ganth had never been so full.
From the highest tiers to the lowest stone benches, minotaurs packed the
stands until only narrow veins of stone showed between them. Horn brushed
horn. Iron bracers clinked. The air trembled with anticipation, though no
steel rang and no blood darkened the sands below. It was not battle they
had come for. It was judgment.
In the Imperial Family Seating, satin curtains stirred in the dry arena
wind. Cushioned seats lined the balconys edge overlooking the vast bowl of
sand. A rose marble fountain whispered beside them, cold water bubbling as
if indifferent to the weight of history pressing in.
Hindera stood there with her arms folded and her chin high.
"After today we should be able to move forward instead of bask in
stagnation. A momentous day. "
Now the moment had come.
Overseer Malvarr stood before her, towering and composed, blue eyes sharp as
winter. One by one they gathered. Threnody, Echanishaid, Mitharg RaijWi,
and Ogdar of House Glorandi answered the summons when the challenge was
declared.
The arena had stood open.
No one had stepped forward.
Below the balcony, the citizens of Ganth waited in a silence heavier than
any roar. There would be no clash of axes today. No desperate final blow.
Only the memory of a rite offered and unanswered.
Malvarr lifted one massive hand. Servants withdrew. Curtains were drawn
wide.
"Let the Empire look upon the sands where destiny is not granted but taken.
"
He turned back to Hindera, his gaze exacting. "You did not wait for
weakness. You called the challenge. And none cast you down. "
The words fell like hammer strikes. The words fell like hammer strikes.
"Kneel. "
Hindera did not hesitate. She lowered herself to one knee upon the cool
stone of the balcony. The stands seemed to lean closer.
A servant approached bearing the Imperial Crown of Ganth upon a crimson
satin cushion. Gold gleamed beneath the high sun. Its edges were not
delicate but angular and severe, fashioned for a ruler of iron will.
"This is no ornament, " Malvarr declared, lifting it high so All might see.
"It is burden. It is judgment. It is the future of the Empire resting upon
mortal will. "
He lowered it slowly, pausing just above her horns.
"Before the Empire and beneath the eyes of the gods, House Glorandi shall
guide the spirit of the Empire. "
The crown settled onto Hinderas head.
"And by that right, I name you Matriarch of House Glorandi and Empress of
Ganth. "
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then the world erupted.
"Long live the Empress, " Threnody called, followed by Mithargs thunderous
echo. Ogdar slammed a fist to his chest. From the farthest balcony to the
sands below, the crowd roared until the Circus shook with it.
"Honor and Glory, " Malvarr bellowed.
Hindera rose.
The weight of the crown was real and heavier than gold alone. She stepped
to the balconys edge and looked down upon the sea of horns and iron, upon
the Empire that had drifted too long without command.
Writer: Hindera
Date Tue Mar 3 22:31:06 2026
To All Ganth ( Imm Admin RP Raije Xenophon Croatoan )
Subject The Rise of the Empire - Part 2
"People of the Empire, sons and daughters of horn and iron. "
The cheers softened enough for her words to carry.
"The Circus was called. The arena stood open to any who would contest. The
summons was not whispered but declared. The sands waited, and none stepped
forward to deny it. "
She lifted her chin.
"Strength is not measured only by the swing of a blade, but by the will to
answer when called. "
A murmur rippled outward in approval.
"I stand before you crowned not by silence or inheritance, but by a
challenge openly given and left unanswered. The right was claimed in the
light of the arena. "
Her gaze hardened.
"This is not the beginning of tyranny. It is the beginning of renewal. "
The word seemed to ignite something in them.
"For too long, the Empire drifted without firm direction. That drift ends
today. We will restore discipline. We will restore purpose. We will
restore the pride that once made our name carry weight across the realms.
"
She struck her chest with a clenched fist, the sound sharp and ringing.
"But hear this clearly. My crown is not a cushion. "
A rumble of approval answered her.
"Minotaurs do not grow comfortable. We do not grow soft. Strength untested
decays. Honor unchallenged weakens. "
She extended one hand toward the masses.
"Therefore I charge each of you to challenge for what you believe is yours.
Rise if you believe you can rise higher. Contest what you think you
deserve. Take what you earn through strength, will, and courage. That is
our way. It has always been our way. "
The roar returned louder than before.
"Until that day, stand with me. Strive. Fight. Build. Overcome weakness
within and without. The Empire begins anew, and it begins with us. "
She drew herself to her full height.
"Glory to the Empire. "
"Glory to the Empire, " came the thunder in reply.
Banners snapped. Horns blared. The sound rolled out from the Circus into
the streets of Ganth and beyond, carried on every breath and every boast.
Behind her, Malvarr bowed once more, solemn and satisfied.
"I shall depart, " he said quietly. "If Her Highness requests me in the
future, I shall not be far. "
Hindera met his gaze and smiled faintly. "I hope we see more challenges and
the arenas soaked in blood once more. "
His answering grin was sharp as a blade. "I look forward to it. "
As he faded from sight, the cheers continued to echo through the city.
The sands below remained unstained for now.
But Ganth no longer drifted.
It had an Empress.
Writer: Blinx
Date Wed Mar 4 07:17:33 2026
To All Symantha Carrionmaw Piknim Archal ( Drakkara IMM RP )
Subject {ua prostration to Drakkara
Temple of Dark Magick
The first sensation is auditory, the chanting of mages and priests on
approach. But upon entering this temple, the eye is immediately drawn
upward. The floor of the temple is not itself impressively spacious, but
dominating gray marble walls rise upward, impossibly tall. Immense darkwood
bookcases containing countless tomes of lore line the octagonal temple, each
separated by rich purple banners that drape from ceiling to floor. A sturdy
iron staircase infused with exquisite scrollwork spirals upward along the
inner walls, stretching to the very top, obviously the work of a master
craftsman's hand. Lit with the flickering of iron torches suspended in
mid-air between their rows, darkwood pews are cushioned with lavishly
embroidered pads of pearlescent black with royal purple thread in a
spiraling celestial design. Ascending regally from the center of the temple
and placed atop a flight of wide marble stairs, a statue of smooth alabaster
glows softly, infused with pulsing magic. Looking down upon the towering
idol, an image of Necrucifer has been painted into the high domed ceiling, a
hand extending down toward her as graceful demons sweep behind him on a sky
of stormy gray. Lavender rose petals have been scattered between the pews,
their scent mixing with fragrant incenses and spices that are burning in
brass braziers near the doors, sending lines of twisting smoke rising
upwards like velvety ghosts.
Rows of polished pews fill the temple, covered in rich cushions.
A graceful alabaster statue towers here, face tilted upward.
Blinx pauses at the threshold of the temple, the chanting washing over him
like a tide of shadowed devotion.
Blinx slowly lands as he enters the temple, his crimson eyes rising toward
the impossibly high marble walls and the towering alabaster statue.
You say in a wheezing voice, "Hail to you, Queen of the Umbra, Supreme of
the Dark Moon."
Blinx walks slowly down the aisle between the darkwood pews, boots
whispering across scattered rose petals.
Blinx reaches the marble steps beneath the statue and falls to both knees
without hesitation. He lowers himself further until his hands touch the
cold marble floor.
You say in a wheezing voice, "Night Mother, Mistress of Magick, Keeper of
the Veil, hear your servant."
Blinx presses his forehead to the marble.
You say in a wheezing voice, "I am Blinx of the Black Robes. My mind, my
craft, my soulthese are yours."
Blinx lifts one hand slowly toward the statue, palm open in offering.
You say in a wheezing voice, "Through shadow and dream, through spell and
faith, I will carry your will."
Blinx bows his head deeply once more.
You say in a wheezing voice, "I swear fealty to you, Dark Queen, tonight and
in every night yet to come."
Blinx remains motionless in prayer, the flickering torchlight dancing across
his dark robes as incense smoke coils upward like silent witnesses.
Writer: Blinx
Date Thu Mar 5 07:39:11 2026
To All Symantha Carrionmaw Piknim Archal ( Black_Robes Conclave Drakkara IMM RP )
Subject {uApologist of Ebony Tower I
Temple of Dark Magick
Blinx drifts toward the shrine with eerie quiet, the faint shimmer of pixie
wings catching the dim light before folding still against his back. He
lands, his gaunt frame sinking slightly under its own weight.
Blinx pauses before the shrine, crimson eyes narrowing slightly as if
studying something beyond the stone itself. Blinx kneels slowly, resting
long skeletally thin fingers against the cold surface.
Blinx says in a wheezing voice, "The Conclave remembers victories well
enough.
Blinx curls his lips faintly, not quite a smile. He wheezes, "But it is
failure that teaches."
Blinx tilts his head, voice thoughtful, almost academic. He wheezes, "I
have been studying the accounts of the Ebony Tower... And the Battle of the
Black Moon."
Blinx traces a small sigil in the dust, the motion absentminded and
practiced.
"There are gaps," he softly says with a strained voice. His wings twitch
once behind him.
Blinx glances upward toward the shrine and says quietly, "The name Bodrum
survives in the margins. A traitor, it says. Yet the records crumble where
the truth should be. The Ebony Tower documents poorly his sin, and further
what we might learn from it."
Blinx says in a wheezing voice, "If the night ever grants me the
opportunity, I would very much like to recover his head. Its mind,
fragments, whatever is left I could use them."
Blinx speaks in a calm tone, scholarly even. "Even traitors leave answers
behind if one knows how to ask the right questions. I want access to his
dreams."
Blinx slowly rises to his feet, brushing dust from his sleeves.
Blinx says in a wheezing voice, "The lesson for the Conclave seems clear to
me."
Blinx folds his hands behind his back. "In that hour, they should have
chosen cleanly." A faint hunger glimmers in his eyes.
Blinx says in a wheezing voice, "Either remain beyond the conflict entirely,
or commit themselves wholly to protecting Her. The sin of Bodrum was
egregious. The institutional failing of the Conclave was damning."
Blinx says in a wheezing voice, "The Conclave's mandate is to teach and
defend the sanctity of magic everywhere, even magic you do not like. The
Ebony Tower is fortunate it still stands after these accounts."
Blinx lingers for a moment longer before the shrine, reflecting on the shame
of the Ebony Tower. His wings begin to flap in an erratic, strained fashion
that slowly lifts him from his knees.
Writer: Tsacherus
Date Thu Mar 5 18:50:26 2026
Writer: Vaelsenathox
Date Sat Mar 7 09:43:58 2026
Writer: Blinx
Date Sat Mar 7 12:24:03 2026
To All Symantha Carrionmaw Piknim Archal ( Drakkara IMM RP )
Subject {ua prostration to Drakkara II
Temple of Dark Magick
Blinx sweeps in through the temple entrance on weathered wings, rising to
match the chanting of priests and mages.
Blinx glides between rows of darkwood pews, the flicker of floating
torchlight tracing over his form. The pitter-patter of wings quiets as he
slips between shadow and torchlight.
Blinx banks in a slow circle beneath the towering dome, descending toward
the alabaster statue at the temple's heart. His feet land softly against
the marble as he touches down, wings spreading wide to bleed away the last
of his momentum.
Blinx slows at the foot of the wide marble stairs, lifting his gaze to the
softly glowing statue of Drakkara. He lowers himself to one knee before the
alabaster idol, ears dipping low as his head bows. Blinx presses one hand
to the cold marble step, quiet and still beneath the Dark Lady's gaze.
You say in a wheezing voice 'Drakkara, Lady of Darkness and Magick hear me.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'I come before you with no claim of worth, no boast of strength, and no plea for easy favor.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'I know the path into your grace is long. It should be.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'Those who hunger only for power rush headlong into shadows they do not understand. I would not insult you by pretending I am ready before I have been tempered.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'So I ask not for haste, but for patience.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'Teach me to endure the length of this road. Teach me to bear silence, hardship, and the weight of being found lacking.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'Let every failing be shown to me plainly. Let every weakness be cut away in time.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'If I am ever to be accepted beneath your shadow, let it be because I proved myself worthy to kneel here.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'I will wait. I will learn. I will return as many times as I must.'
You say in a wheezing voice 'Until then my Queen. I remain only committed to gaining your favor through a deepening of faith, and acts of service.'
Writer: Pyrsas
Date Mon Mar 9 21:16:39 2026
Writer: Piknim
Date Tue Mar 10 00:13:55 2026
To All Verminasia ( rp imm Drakkara Fatale Cayenna Admin )
Subject {uCall of the Void: Leaps and Bounds (Part One)
The Gogothathan raven knew things that Piknim Cracklespark did not.
She had borrowed its eyes often enough to understand this, slipped her
consciousness into the familiar's small dark body like pulling on a coat,
felt the world shrink and open wide All at once. Flight was not simply the
world made smaller. It was the world made weightless. The Sea Cliffs, the
Misty Forest, the Ivory Shore far below, All of it softened into something
almost dreamlike, a painting still wet at the edges, colours bleeding into
one another where the Ultramarine Sea met the sky.
She rode the thermals south along Roully Bab Binb off the coast of Balifore
as a raven among gulls, which is to say she rode them poorly and with
considerable mockery from her company. Gulls were creatures of magnificent
self-satisfaction. They neither knew nor cared that the small dark bird
wheeling exhuberatnly in their midst was something else entirely, a
Darkfinder in disguise, a kender who never quite outgrew the childhood
certainty that flying was only a matter of wanting it badly enough.
One gull peeled away from the flock. A long, lonely cry. An answer rose
from somewhere below and she folded her wings and dropped toward it without
a moment's hesitation.
-
Piknim landed on the sea cliff's edge with a whorl of magic as she took
mortal form, mantle of iridescent feathers fluttering about her bantam
figure.
The sea breeze hit differently in her own skin.
In raven-form the wind provided a helping hand. Something to seize at, to
pull her up, to hold her steady. Now it buffeted her with playful malice,
ruffling her topknot and filling her robes like sails, as though personally
offended by something this small standing someplace this high. She planted
her ebony hoopak and leaned into it and grinned back at the wind as if to
remind it she had never once in her life backed down from something that
pushed her first.
She leaned out over the edge seeking a glimpse of the lone gull, only to
find the beach instead.
Far below, where the basalt cliffs dissolved into ivory shore, the crescent
curved. The ebb and flow of an Ultramarine Sea traced mystic patterns
across the shimmering sand and from this height, from exactly this height
and no other, the shape of it resolved into something that stopped the
breath in her chest.
A Crescent Beach. Drakkara's moon. Written in the world itself. Visible
only to those with the audacity to stand at the edge and stare into the
abyss.
Only then did she feel it. The call of the void.
Writer: Piknim
Date Tue Mar 10 00:17:45 2026
To All Verminasia ( rp imm Drakkara Fatale Cayenna Admin )
Subject {uCall of the Void: Leaps and Bounds (Part Two)
Any sensible creature would have stepped back from the edge here, would
have felt the pull of the void and recognized it for what it was. The
world's oldest and most honest warning. Even a kender, fearless as the gods
made her, might have felt the particular wisdom of solid ground beneath her
feet and chosen to keep it there.
Piknim backed away from the edge slowly.
She needed enough space to build momentum, after all.
Her free hand found the misshapen black gourd at her hip. Not a casual sip
this time, but a proper pull. Deliberate and purposeful. Necrotic magic
flooded the entirety of her being from head to toe, imbuing her very bones
with the chill of a dark promise indelibly kept.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, adjusted her grip on the
hoopak, and broke into a sprint.
The cliff edge rushed to meet Piknim's head-long dash and she leapt from the
edge and then there was nothing beneath her but the long blue answer to a
question she'd been asking her whole life.
She didn't shut her eyes.
She wanted to see and feel everything until the very end.
The cliff face rushed past in a blur of ancient basalt and stubborn grass
clinging to cracks where it had no business growing, an impulse she
understood All too well, and the wind that once buffeted her from the side
became something else entirely, became everything, became the whole world
screaming past her ears in a long exhilarating note she felt in her back
teeth.
She was grinning the whole way. Naturally.
The raven launched from her shoulder the instant she went over, because even
faithful familiars had opinions about adventures of this sort and registered
them formally by abandoning her to it.
Somewhere on a narrow ledge halfway down, a seagull sat upon a nest of
matted grass, twigs, and seaweed. Beside her, the mate she had flown to
meet. They watched with identical expressions of profound seagull
disapproval as something small and dark and delighted plummeted past them at
considerable speed, topknot trailing behind her like the world's most
impractical tail.
Piknim waved.
Then the ivory shore came up to meet her with the particular enthusiasm of
things that had been waiting patiently and were finally getting their
moment.
The impact was white and devastating and absolutely worth it.
Silence.
Writer: Piknim
Date Tue Mar 10 00:25:35 2026
To All Verminasia ( rp imm Drakkara Fatale Cayenna Admin )
Subject {uCall of the Void: Leaps and Bounds (Part Three)
The withstand death spell didn't ask permission.
It never did. Sickly green tendrils of necrotic energy, like spectral
fingers, found the broken places the way water found cracks. First a
shattered rib. Then another. The deliberate, complete reassembly of
something that had, very briefly, been considerably less organized than a
person.
Piknim became aware of the sand first.
Cool and ivory-white, fine against her cheek, carrying the mineral tang of
salt and crushed shell and the copper warmth of blood dribbling from the
corners of her mouth. The waves somewhere nearby, patient as breathing.
The wet cadence of the sea doing what the sea had always done, indifferent
to witches and their recreational choices.
She became aware of the sky next. Azure. Unbothered. A single dark shape
circling overhead like a vulture, albeit with grievances to air at her
penchant for dying unnecessarily.
"Yes, yes," she thought at the raven. "Noted!"
Her fingers moved.
Not to the place her ribs had been. Not checking inventory or assessing
damage or doing any of the sensible things a person reassembled from first
principles might reasonably prioritize.
Something glimmered in the sand within reach of her left hand. Smooth.
Slightly spiral. Catching the light in a way that suggested colours she
hadn't confirmed yet.
She closed her fingers around it before she had fully confirmed the
existence of her fingers.
The grin arrived before the rest of her did.
She opened her palm. A small whelk shell, banded in blue and yellow,
perfect and salt-worn and the most interesting thing on the entire beach.
Already she was thinking of where it would sit in the curio cabinet. Beside
the sour lemon ball from a candy shop that no longer existed in a kingdom
that lived on only in ruin and memory.
A memento from the day she answered the void.
"Oh," thought the Darkfinder, already sitting up, already tasting salt and
copper and the particular satisfaction of surviving something spectacular.
"Why hello there, my pretty."
Finis.
Call of the Void is an ongoing series of vignettes exploring the particular
curiosities of a kender witch who has made practical arrangements with
mortality and honors Fatale by exploring the novelty of death by
misadventure. Future installments may involve dragons.
Writer: Tamello
Date Tue Mar 10 09:40:46 2026
To All Piknim ( Religion RP Imm Drakkara )
Subject Storm of Purpose : Religion Change / Alignment Change
Tamello rested on the craggy ground overlooking eastern lands of Markon.
Hearty grasses and weeds ended at the cliff's edge, vanishing into air and
the sands far below. Sure, some sprouted here and there along the cliff
face, but they did so in vain. Echo's of the past haunted his mind as he
looked out over the ocean.
"Grow where you are planted", his mother told him a long time ago. Had he
not grown in Verminasia?
"Build a legacy for those that come after you," his father said as they
finished work on a well. Was Markon his legacy? Was his station and rank?
Were there other lagodae out there to truly call Verminasia home because of
him?
"{oGive thanks to the land and respect it, and it shall carry you forward",
his grandpa had taught him as they harvested in the Autumn. So far it did,
but he wanted more. There was more to be had for him. He still gave it the
respect it needed, deserved, but it wasn't the land that he sought.
"She demands reckless ambition be tempered by the rigid discipline of
purpose", Her precepts read. This thought echoed louder thant he others.
Reckless ambition. Discipline of purpose. What was his purpose? Sure he
lead the armies of Verminasia, but was that his true purpose? Did he have a
purpose in the Tapestry?
Did he not show his strength in the arena? Did he not show his strength in
landing the killing blow on the WarpSpeaker during the assault on Chaos?
Was that not a purpose driven?
No, he thought to himself, it wasn't. It was ambition without the purpose.
That thought bothered him as he watched the ebb and flow of the waters at
the beach.
What was his purpose?
Writer: Tamello
Date Tue Mar 10 09:42:59 2026
To All Piknim ( Religion RP Imm Drakkara )
Subject Storm of Purpose 2 : Religion Change / Alignment Change
He stood and slowly made his way down the hill and onto the sands. Here
he could see the sheer cliff-side walls to his left and right, hemming the
beach front in. He turned to his right and headed along the coast. The
winds buffeted him and pulled his cloak this way and that about him. Hood
down, his ears joined in the dance of the wind, bending to an fro in the
effort. Gray clouds, ever darkening, grew upon the horizon, providing a
curtain to the setting sun. It was beautiful.
Tam continued walking, lost in thought, as the first drops of rain landed on
his head and nose, pulling him from his thoughts. The sky was dark with
storm clouds and the waves choppy with the wind. He looked around for a
moment, trying to get his bearings as a flash of lightning was followed by a
large peel of thunder that shook him into his bones. By instinct he froze
for but a moment, the life of fear and afraid for so long taking over. He
mentally kicked himself as he pushed passed it and looked for a way off the
beach, for it was no place for a small lepori during what was looking to be
a temultuous storm.
He pulled his cloak about him as tight as he could, fighting the wind for it
as he turned back around, but he knew it would be hours before he could get
back up the coastal wall. His best bet would be to find shelter, if one was
to be had. It was about another half hour till he found a large enough
cave, if it could be called that, in the cliff-side and was able to take
shelter there. Though it wasn't large, it did have a small enough entry way
that would protect him from the worst of the weather, and was up high enough
that would prevent any flooding should the storm deign cause that much.
Dark, cold, damp. The cave was still better than outside as the wind howled
and the storm raged on. The rain drops now as cold as icicles as they fell
in sheets. Tam cursed to himself as he wish he had learned how to properly
build a camp fire to dry himself, not that he had any dry wood to start a
fire with anyways, but gave thanks to the Dark Lady for his luck in finding
this place. It wasn't much, but it served its purpose. Was he like the
cave, he thought as he laid out his cloak to dry and shook the wetness from
his fur. 'Was he meant to give safe passage to those caught in the storm?
Was that too... Light-driven?
He gave a small pause of thought and shook his head.
No. There were bastions of protection scattered around Algoron.
Verminasia, Storm Keep, the Ebony Tower. Why couldn't he be one for the
people? Then a thought struck him again. Was he not already? He was the
general of the Dark Jewel. He wasn't there to just conquer, but to protect
the lands and the people.
He had a purpose. He just needed to lean into it.
Writer: Tamello
Date Tue Mar 10 11:13:09 2026
To All Piknim ( Religion RP Imm Drakkara )
Subject Storm of Purpose 3 : Religion Change / Alignment Change
The storm raged and howled outside as Tamello sat there in the dark
wrestling with his own thoughts. He could only imagine what it was like to
be out in that sea. Dark, cold, swallowed by wave and wind. He felt like
that inside as well. Caught up in something bigger than himself.
'But wasn't that the point, ' he argued. 'The Tapestry is bigger than one
single individual. '
'{nOh, but what can a little lepori do on their own? What is it you offer to
it? What -can- you offer to it, ', the Voice came back, quiet and venomous.
Tam let the Voice hang for a moment as he thought. Though the Voice seemed
to murmur and hiss in the back of his mind.
'The smallest thread can strengthen or unravel a tapestry. I will weave
myself into it and strengthen it. I - ', he counted to the Voice as it
interrupted him.
'{nBut have you? What ... Good... Have you done to strengthen the Tapestry?
All you do is fight, fight... FIGHT... But do you know what else fights so
hard? Prey. '
'Oh, shutit. I'm not prey. I'm not scared anymore. I fight for strength.
To show what I'm capable of to Drakkara. To the Sons. To say, I -am-
strong... '
The Voice was quiet for a while as Tam stood and began to pace. Afraid?
Him? Not anymore. He'd been shown purpose, what power could be, and the
strength of those that claimed such power as their own.
The wind howled once more as the Voice, venom dripping with each word, gave
voice to his doubts, '{nAnd if they don't accept you? What purpose do you
serve? '
Tam stopped and fumed, at himself, at the Voice, at the doubt that creeped
into the cracks of his armor. He stood there, looking out into the darkness
lit up by flashes of lightning for a moment longer.
'No. It's not -if- they don't accept me. That's cowards talk. It's -when-
they accept me. And you, Voice in my head, are just that. I've given you
too much strength recently. No more. ' he said with a finality, outloud,
his true voice echoing into the cave.
And there was silence save for the storm, which even that seemed to have
quieted down now. He knelt and took his cloak in hand, fastening it about
him once more. Perhaps not a strong difference in the lepori that entered,
but there was a change. He had his purpose. He had his ambition. Together
he would weave his own tale through the Tapestry and make it All the
stronger. Together with his comrades and friends they would make it
stronger still.
'No, no single lepori can do what needs doing, ' he said outloud to the
storm. 'But a lepori with a group of other individuals can see the Vision
come to fruition. '
The storm had run its course, calmed to that of a drizzle upon the sands as
it blew inward. Dousing his light, he stepped into that darkness, stars
still blotted, moons hidden, but he swore, for a moment, he could feel a tug
towards one he had never seen before.
Within the cave the Voice had been silenced for a time. Doubt was always
the killer of dreams and it wouldn't let go of someone with so great of an
aspiration as Tamello de Fformelo Tussock. It would wait and watch, ready
to strike again when the time came.
Outside, Tam smiled as he left his footprints in the sand.
'Within the Infinite Night, everything. ' rang through his head.
Everything.
Writer: Pyrsas
Date Tue Mar 10 12:33:11 2026
Writer: Tsacherus
Date Tue Mar 10 16:47:09 2026
Writer: Tsacherus
Date Tue Mar 10 16:54:58 2026
Writer: Tsacherus
Date Tue Mar 10 16:55:08 2026
Writer: Tsacherus
Date Tue Mar 10 16:55:11 2026
Writer: Aothien
Date Sat Mar 14 20:27:09 2026
Writer: Aothien
Date Sat Mar 14 20:34:01 2026
Writer: Piknim
Date Sat Mar 14 21:15:32 2026
To Verminasia Shadow Shalonesti All ( Croatoan Drakkara Cayenna Admin )
Subject The Blazing Aurora:{u What the Umbraseer Knew (1/2) (repost)
The Blazing Aurora scintillated with light and color enough to fill any
kender with wide-eyed wonder.
Piknim hated that about it.
It hung over the southern borderlands like a pronouncement, vast and
luminous and righteously indignant at the vermin beneath it. She had
watched it for years now.. longer than Lavinah's reign, longer than
Rhylgar's, longer than the slow accumulation of power and scars that had
brought her to this particular balcony on this particular night. It had
been beautiful then too. It had always been beautiful. That was the
cruelest thing about something trying to kill you.
The surge had begun an hour ago.
She hadn't moved.
Below the palace walls, the southernmost trees stood pale in the Aurora's
reaching light, their bark gone the colour of old bone, their shadows
shortened to nothing. Blinx had sent his report. Muldur had sent his. The
outer gates had been encroached upon but were secure. The city was safe for
now, which was the kind of reassurance that only meant something until it
didn't.
She watched the light move and thought about Andreyna Sha'enlas, who had
tried.
"You're welcome," the elf queen had written, three times, as though
repetition might soften what the Aurora was doing to Verminasia's southern
edge even as the ink dried.
Piknim didn't blame her for trying. That was the problem. She understood
exactly why Andreyna had done what she'd done. The Vallens were dying,
Zandreya was suffering, the Warp's corruption threading through everything
Andreyna held sacred. She would have done the same. She had done the same,
once.. had walked away from everything she was and toward everything she
wasn't, because Balifore was burning and nobody was coming and desperation
doesn't seek permission before it changes you.
She understood. And Verminasia was still petrifying.
"Too soft," Telthian had said, his blood on her hands, his voice cutting
through the Rite of Domination's solemnity with the particular precision of
someone who had watched her long enough to know exactly where to aim. "Too
emotional to do what it takes. You will always be just a kender."
She hadn't answered him then. She had scurried back to her place, pouting
inwardly, as a kender is wont to do and exactly what he'd expected and
exactly what she'd admonished herself for in the hours afterward.
She thought about answering him now, across the span of time between that
moment and this one.
I told Andreyna nothing of the umbral reliquary, she might have said. I
watched and I waited and I prepared and I held my tongue. I didn't flinch.
I didn't balk. I built what needed building and I found who needed finding
and I have two Numen Reliquae where she had one and a lens cut from black
moonglass to ensure the full force of it is channeled properly.. and not a
single soul misplaced.
And I am standing on this balcony alone watching my home purged stone by
stone and I am angry in a way that feels embarrassingly close to grief.
Writer: Piknim
Date Sat Mar 14 21:21:51 2026
To Verminasia Shadow Shalonesti All ( Croatoan Drakkara Cayenna Admin )
Subject The Blazing Aurora:{u What the Umbraseer Knew (2/2) (repost)
The Aurora pulsed once, slow and vast, and the light reached a little
further north.
Symantha had warned her. Not in so many words. The Umbraseer never used so
many words when fewer would do. A look across the table. A pause before
answering. The particular quality of silence that meant I see what you're
hoping for and I care for you enough not to say it plainly.
Piknim had heard it. She had prepared accordingly. She had hoped to be
wrong anyway.
She was not wrong.
The raven shifted on her shoulder, restless with the strange light. She
steadied it absently with one hand, the familiar's bantam shadow a small
comfort against the warmth coming off the Aurora's reach.
Friday, she thought. Six days.
The umbral reliquary was ready. Symantha was ready. The Numen Reliqua of
Darkness waited in its housing of soulsteel and Duskvein, attended,
purposeful, every lesson learned from Shalonesti's venture already folded
into the plan.
The elves had poured the Reliqua of Light out like water into sand and hoped
for the best.
Piknim intended to aim.
She watched the Aurora a short while longer. Let herself feel the specific
shape of what Andreyna had cost her. Not the surging light eating at
Verminasia's edge, not the fear and doubt kindled in the hearts of her
people, but the other thing. The thing Telthian had named without quite
understanding it. The part of her that had wanted the Twilight Covenant to
mean something that lasted. The part that had extended a small hand across
centuries of bad blood and old wounds and the particular bitterness of dark
elves and light elves and meant it genuinely and kept her word down to the
last letter.
The part that was, as he said, too soft.
The Darkfinder let herself feel it.
Then she went inside to attend the proclamation that had long awaited her
signature.
In the throne room of Verminasia's palace, a deep chuckle of dark amusement
emanated from within an archway of lambent stygian rock.
Writer: Aothien
Date Sat Mar 14 21:23:46 2026
Writer: Zayk
Date Sun Mar 15 05:02:20 2026
To All Shadow ( Drakkara Imm Religion Xenophon Cayenna )
Subject {uAnima Reforged by Umbra: The Last Rite of Necrucifer Part I
The night lay heavy upon the halls of Storm Keep, thick with the scent of
cold iron and dying incense. Wind moved through the high battlements like a
whispering congregation, murmuring prayers to a god that no longer answered.
Within the shadowed altar chamber deep in the keep, Zayk knelt alone.
A finely carved arch marked the chamber's entrance, its surface etched with
ancient symbols that spoke of devotion long practiced within these walls.
Grooves filled with silver, carved into the polished black marble of the
room, formed immense runes and sigils that shimmered in the light of the
enormous crystal chandeliers high above, casting a cold brilliance that
washed the chamber in pale light.
The altar itself was carved from obsidian veined with the same silver runes.
The symbol of Necrucifer was etched deep into its surface. The mark had
been chiseled by faithful hands, but what remained was a hollow outline
where devotion had been ripped from the world.
He stared at that symbol.
Reaching out, a gauntleted hand rested on the altar, and beneath the
arcanium he felt the faint tremor of weakness that had crept into him over
the past weeks. It was subtle, yet undeniable. Strikes were slower.
Prayers colder. The shadows answered reluctantly, like servants who no
longer recognized their master. Once, such weakness would have been
impossible. The abyss had answered eagerly, and Necrucifer's power had
flowed through him.
The Master of Darkness had ruled the Abyss as an emperor rules one of his
kingdoms, and Zayk had served Him from boyhood until he rose among the
venerated Shadowknights. Every oath sworn, every enemy cut down, every drop
of blood spilled beneath the black banners of Storm had been offered to that
endless darkness and the promise of the prophecy.
But Necrucifer was gone.
At the Battle of the Black Moon, the heavens themselves had split with
violence. Light surged into the realm of darkness, and Nadrik was freed
from His long imprisonment. In the chaos of that cosmic upheaval, Drakkara,
seeing Her moment, struck down Necrucifer and seized His throne.
Now She ruled.
The Queen of Darkness.
Writer: Zayk
Date Sun Mar 15 05:03:44 2026
To All Shadow ( Drakkara Imm Religion Xenophon Cayenna )
Subject {uAnima Reforged by Umbra: The Last Rite of Necrucifer Part II
Most of Storm Keep had accepted it. The other knights had bent their
knees to the Queen of Darkness. Faith, after all, was different for each of
them. But he could not make his spirit obey so easily.
He tried. Gods knew he tried, wrestling with frustration and doubt with
every attempt.
He had spoken the prayers taught by the High Priestess Symantha. He had
performed the devotions the order now required. Yet each word felt hollow,
as though reciting the rites of a stranger's faith.
And so his power faded. Desperate, he arranged to have the altar to himself
tonight.
He inhaled slowly and began the rite.
The circle around the altar had been drawn in ash and powdered bone, its
runes laid with the careful precision of someone who had performed the rite
many times before. Candles burned with low violet flames at the four
corners of the chamber, their smoke rising in thin black strands that curled
against the ceiling like reaching fingers.
'Eternal Darkness,' he murmured in a demonic tongue, voice steady
despite the tension coiled in his chest. 'Hear the call of this champion of
darkness who has served it faithfully.'
The words were old. Older than Storm Keep itself.
He closed his eyes and opened himself to the dark. For a moment, nothing
happened.
Then the air shifted. Cold seeped through the chamber as if some unseen
door had opened far below the world. The candles' flames guttered,
stretching long and thin as the darkness deepened.
Power stirred-black energy, thick as tar and heavy as gravity-gathered
within the ritual circle. It seeped upward from the ground itself, drawn by
the ancient sigils carved into the stone floor. Tendrils of abyssal force
twisted together, spiraling slowly toward him like smoke drawn into a hidden
current.
It touched him. The familiar chill spread across his skin, sliding through
the seams of his armor and sinking into his bones. For the first time in
weeks, true power flowed toward him. Yet something was wrong.
He frowned. The energy was thin. The abyssal power that once roared like a
black storm now trickled in weak streams. Dismay hollowed him out-it felt
distant, diluted, like water drawn from a dying well.
'Abyss, I command thee,' he whispered sharply.
The darkness obeyed, but the weakness remained. Frustration clawed at his
resolve.
Then something else arrived. At first subtle-so subtle he did not notice
it.
A faint shimmer appeared at the edges of the swirling abyssal energy. Deep,
velvety purple, darker than twilight yet brighter than shadow. It moved
differently from the Abyss, smooth and fluid, like silk sliding through
water.
Umbral power.
Writer: Zayk
Date Sun Mar 15 05:05:15 2026
To All Shadow ( Drakkara Imm Religion Xenophon Cayenna )
Subject {uAnima Reforged by Umbra: The Last Rite of Necrucifer Part III
The Umbral energy wound around the abyssal currents, threading through
them in slow, graceful spirals. Where the black energy crawled and clawed
upward, the purple force glided effortlessly.
Still he did not see it, his attention fixed on the Abyss's weakness.
Then it struck.
The moment it touched him, he gasped. Power exploded through his veins.
Muscles flooded with strength so intense he nearly collapsed. White and
violet flashed across his vision as his senses extended beyond the chamber
walls.
This was no thin trickle. This was a torrent. More power than he had felt
since before. A harsh laugh escaped him as the energy filled his chest.
For one fleeting moment, it felt magnificent.
Then the pain began. The umbral energy changed. What had flowed into him
now reversed. Instead of feeding him, it fed on him.
His body locked in sudden agony.
Invisible claws seemed to sink into his soul, tearing pieces from him and
dragging them back into the swirling purple currents. The power he had just
gained was ripped away with brutal hunger.
His breath shattered into ragged gasps. The chamber twisted as the ritual
circle blazed. Abyssal shadows whipped across the floor. Violet energy
constricted him like predator's coils.
Drakkara's power. The realization struck him like a hammer. This was not a
gift. It was a warning. Or perhaps a punishment.
He staggered, trying to force the energies back under his control. Hands
slammed against the altar as he fought to maintain the ritual.
But the umbral force only fed harder.
Pain tore through his nerves as though molten iron coursed through his
veins. Each heartbeat stabbed deeper into his chest.
He knew he was losing. If the ritual continued even a moment longer, it
would consume him completely.
With a desperate snarl, he lunged forward, driving his gauntlet through the
ash circle at his feet, smearing the runes apart.
The circle shattered. The energies collapsed instantly.
A thunderclap of darkness and violet light burst outward as the ritual
broke, currents snapping back into the void like severed chains. The
chandeliers above swayed violently as the chamber fell suddenly silent.
Writer: Zayk
Date Sun Mar 15 05:06:42 2026
To All Shadow ( Drakkara Imm Religion Xenophon Cayenna )
Subject {uAnima Reforged by Umbra: The Last Rite of Necrucifer Part IV
He staggered to his feet, every muscle screaming, then collapsed forward
against the altar, breath rasping, body wracked with tremors as the last
traces of umbral power deserted him.
For a long time, he did not move.
Each breath scraped like knives through his lungs, cold sweat streaming
beneath his armor. The chamber had fallen deathly silent. Only the faint,
uneasy sway of the chandeliers marred the stillness overhead.
Slowly, painfully, he forced himself upright.
The altar loomed before him.
His eyes fell upon the symbol of Necrucifer carved into the obsidian
surface. Once, it had been a mark of certainty. A promise of power that
had never failed him.
Now it felt like the relic of a dead age.
The Abyss had answered tonight. But weakly. And something else had
answered far more strongly.
His jaw clenched as the memory of that violet force surged back. He could
still feel the way it had invaded him, filled every corner of his being,
then consumed him utterly.
He lowered his head.
'So,' he murmured hoarsely to the empty chamber, 'that is how it is.'
His gauntleted hand rested briefly on the altar. Once, that touch carried
reverence. Now it carried only the weight of finality.
Necrucifer was gone.
The power that had shaped his life had changed with His fall. The abyss no
longer bent to the will of the dead.
He drew a slow breath. Clinging to what had been would only leave him
weaker with every passing day. To remain a Shadowknight, he would have to
find the path.
He turned from the altar at last. Beyond the doors of the chamber waited
the cold wind of the battlements and a world that had already changed
without him. The other dark knights had found their path beneath the Queen
of Darkness.
The other knights had already discovered the truth that eluded him. Yet his
path to Drakkara would be found in the answers they carried.
Writer: Tamello
Date Sun Mar 15 14:13:54 2026
To Verminasia All Piknim ( Imm Religion RP Drakkara )
Subject On the Razor's Edge
Tam stood on the battlements at the southern gate, his toes against the
line where the Aurora encroached. Orders had been given to stay out of the
afflicted area during this time, but the pure white petrification of the
forest and walls had already begun. Behind him stood the guards and
soldiers that stood in ready defense of the city, and the whispers reached
his ever twitching ears.
Whispers of uncertainty and fear. Tam let the group go on for a time,
listening even as he stared into the blinding Aurora with grim
determination. As his thoughts raced, so did the tapping of his foot. His
own worries in his heart of hearts started to swell before he stomped his
foot down and gave a large huff, startling those right behind him.
Turning with a small hop to those gathered he grinned a grin he knew All to
well. '{oAlright! {oThat's {oenough of that! So what if the elves turned up the
light show?! What have we to fear of the Light? {oLook what they have to do
to seem imposing! Tch. So they turned up the heat. I say let them burn
{othemselves out! This is nothing but reckless ambition! And fear?! Ha!
What is more fearful than the power of the Dark Goddess?! '
Tam rested his hoe on his shoulder, grinning All the while. '{oThe Tapestry
will hold strong because we are woven together, and tightly at that! We may
singe at the ends, but by the Goddess I'll be there to stand by you! Hells,
I've burned once for this city already and I'll do it again if need be. '
He turned to glance at the Aurora and scoffed, '{oThey have come to purify us.
Has the blessing of Lord Dragoth not already made us anew from our past
afflictions?! They will bring wrathful vengeance. Do they not know that
Death and Rage and Vengeance is Lord Fatale's domain?! When they try to
outsmart us, will they not know the folley of their own treachery at the
plans of Lord Devion?! '
'{oWe will stand. We will fight. And by the Goddess we will push back this
Lightburn. So stand ready, my fellow citizens. Stand ready to cast the
Light down and throw Algoron into Darkness. '
Coiling his legs beneath him he leaped up as high as he could while yelling
his battlecry of 'Eulalia! ' As he landed, though, his heart swelled as the
shouts of the force returned the cry or even added their own in the
particular case of one goblinkin.
Turn his back to the soldiers and guards he set his feet, squared his
shoulders, and stood vigil.
'For the Infinite Night'
Writer: Justian
Date Sun Mar 15 20:43:53 2026
To All Chaos ( IMM RP MALACHIVE )
Subject The Scar in the Hall I
The Main Gathering Hall had always worn its blasphemies proudly.
The paintings on the marble walls still told their old truths of liberation
and ruin. Malachive still stood above the globe in golden triumph, chains
torn open in divine hands. The Abhorrants still watched in silence from
their stations at the exits, grim and patient as old verdicts. The hall was
as it had been built to be, a place where the lie of the world could be
named aloud.
Yet... It was different now... Again.
Justian stood within it without motion, tall and pale beneath the high vault
of the chamber, his white equine frame held in that same measured stillness
that so often made others lower their voices without knowing why. Nothing
about him seemed tense. Nothing hurried. His robe hung clean and unadorned
beneath the lines of fitted white silksteel armor. His face was composed.
Only the eyes betrayed anything at all. Sapphire, steady, reflective.
Watching.
At the center of the room, not far from the fountain and the golden statue,
the tree of horn remained rooted in the hall like a wound made architecture.
It had always been an offense to order. A thing too deliberate to be called
growth and too alive to be called sculpture. Its bark had the look of blood
gone hard. Its branching antlers rose in frozen violence, as though the
Warp had once taught a beast to become a tree and then commanded it never to
die.
Now Light had touched it.
Not gently... Not cleanly... Light had scarred it.
The blinding mark of that touch ran pale and ugly across the bloody bark,
not as healing, but as intrusion. It was the kind of brightness that holy
mouths called cleansing, but there was nothing clean in the look of it. The
scar stood out against the horned surface like old bone showing through
split flesh. It had not transformed the tree into anything noble. It had
only made visible the violence required to try.
Justian approached it at last.
His hooves rang softly against the stone. The sound disappeared into the
vastness of the hall, but his presence did not. Light always seemed
uncertain around him. It bent where it met his frame. It touched the
carved star in his forehead and found no welcome there. The old wound sat
raw at the center though the edges had long since healed and as he drew
nearer to the tree its angry shape seemed almost to tighten, as if some
buried nerve had been struck.
He laid one hand against the horned trunk.
For a moment he said nothing.
(continued)
Writer: Justian
Date Sun Mar 15 20:47:08 2026
To All Chaos ( IMM RP MALACHIVE )
Subject The Scar in the Hall II
Those who understood nothing of Chaos would have seen desecration in the
sight before him. They would have seen injury. Perhaps even weakness.
They would have imagined the auroras reach had accomplished something
profound, that this scar in the hall was a warning or proof that the Warp
could be driven back by enough borrowed radiance and enough righteous panic.
But Justian felt no retreat in it.
He felt resistance.
Beneath his palm the tree was cold where the light had bitten it, but deeper
within, past the pale ruin on the surface, there remained a living pulse.
Not the pulse of sap. Not the pulse of any earthly thing. It was the
stubborn thrum of a truth that had already survived too much to mistake pain
for defeat.
A slow breath left him.
"So," he murmured, the word seemed to fall twice, once from his mouth and
once from somewhere just behind it. "This is what their mercy looks like."
His gaze lifted, not to the tree but beyond it, as though seeing past marble
and mortar, past kingdoms and forests, to where the good and faithful had
congratulated themselves. They had loosed souls into the sky. They had
poured reliquaries into radiance. They had tried to leash consequence after
awakening it. They had scattered assurances afterward like alms. We tried.
We meant balance. You are welcome.
He smiled then, though only faintly.
There was no mockery in it. That was what made it colder.
The note from the elves had the sound of every old priesthood at the edge of
failure: apology wrapped around self-praise, disaster explained as
necessity, damage named virtue because the hand that caused it insisted its
heart was pure. The Vallens were dying. The Fort was dying. A god was
dying. So they acted. Of course they did. They always did. Every throne
and temple in Algoron acted when its own inheritance was threatened.
Afterward they called the cost unfortunate, regrettable... Unavoidable.
Then they demanded gratitude.
Justians hand slid near the scar in the bark, careful to remain clear of it.
Such things had a tendency to react poorly to stimuls. His fingers traced
the place where the aurora had made its claim. The pale wound did not
disgust him. It interested him. It clarified.
This was the weakness of the faithful. They still believed injury was
argument.
(continued)
Writer: Justian
Date Sun Mar 15 20:49:38 2026
To All Chaos ( IMM RP MALACHIVE )
Subject The Scar in the Hall III
They imagined that if darkness blackened, then light purified. If the
Warp twisted, then the opposite force must restore. But the horned tree
said otherwise. Here in the heart of the hall was proof enough. The light
had not restored. It had petrified, scarred, burned, blanched. It had made
a corpse-mask of its own holiness and called that balance. It had laid
claim to violence and wrapped it in celestial color.
The gods were never opposites.
They were rivals sharing methods.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
He thought then of the hall itself. Of Malachive tearing chains from the
world. Of the long Cause. Of Crelius, and All the others who had not
mistaken this age for peace merely because its screaming changed pitch. The
realms trembled now not because Chaos had failed, but because everyone else
had begun to reveal what they had always been when frightened enough. Elves
pouring soul-light through the sky. Darkness bargaining with Light and
being petrified for it. Kingdoms speaking of safety while their sacred
powers bled into lands not their own.
Here in the Wake of All that splendor, stood a scarred tree that remained.
Justian lowered his head for a moment, not in submission, but in
contemplation. When he looked again, there was warmth in his face, the same
warmth that drew the uncertain nearer when he spoke. But behind it, for
just an instant, something older moved through his gaze. Something patient.
Something that had waited a very long time for the righteous to begin
explaining themselves in public.
The scar on his forehead seemed almost fever-bright.
"They wished to heal a dying world," he said softly. "So they taught it to
glow while it screamed."
The hall offered no answer. The fountain whispered. The statue towered.
The horned tree stood mutilated but unbowed.
Justian drew his hand away.
Where his palm had rested, nothing changed. No miracle followed. No
soothing sign descended. The mark of Light remained plain upon the bark for
all to see.
Good.
Let it remain.
(continued)
Writer: Justian
Date Sun Mar 15 20:51:16 2026
To All Chaos ( IMM RP MALACHIVE )
Subject The Scar in the Hall IV
Let every soul who entered the Main Gathering Hall look upon it and
understand what had truly happened. Not that Chaos had been mastered, nor
that the Warp had been corrected, but that the great powers of the realm had
once again laid hands upon the world like owners fighting over livestock and
called the struggle salvation.
The tree had not been erased. It had been scarred.
As had so many things before they learned to speak.
He turned from it then, white and composed, his stride as calm as prayer.
For the briefest moment, faint eight-pointed stars bloomed in his wake upon
the stone and vanished like breath. He did not look back.
He did not need to.
The hall was speaking plainly now.
Not even the Light knew how to touch the Warp without becoming cruel.
Writer: Piknim
Date Mon Mar 16 19:27:21 2026
To Verminasia Shadow Shalonesti All ( Croatoan Drakkara Cayenna Admin )
Subject The Blazing Aurora: {uWhat the Warden Wrought (1/2)
The gifts arrived before Aothien Galazios did.
The Darkfinder had her ways of knowing things. Ravens came and went from
the palace balcony at odd hours. Black cats appeared in doorways and
disappeared before anyone thought to question them. Vassals sent reports
that she scoured with relentless curiosity, unlike many who delegated the
little things. And she could often be found peering into a black moonglass
scrying orb, its inscrutable depths consulted with the focused intensity of
a Witch-Queen doing serious strategic work and the abundant snacks of a
child peeking in at candid moments for the sole purpose of amusement.
Through one means or another, she knew of recent events in Atstlomme. Four
smiths lost to madness, minds collapsing under the tide of darkness pouring
off their work like heat from a forge. The Warden of Atstlomme's own knees
on the stone, threading an umbral needle four hours on end while the Aurora
pressed from every direction upon the lands and people in his charge. A
wagon loaded with his own hands and driven through the streets of Verminasia
before the sweat on his brow had dried.
He looked terrible.
Piknim noticed this immediately and tucked it into her back pocket, because
pointing out that a Dark Knight looked like he'd just lost a fight with his
bigger, scalier half would be both rude and entirely beside the point. The
gaunt lines of his face and weary yet dignified manner in which he held
himself were not the marks of defeat. She had seen and met defeat before.
This was something else. This was what it looked like when someone had
given everything they had and was still standing anyway.
She hadn't asked him for any of it.
That's the part that mattered.
The shield came first. Crystal dragonscales upon a formidable arcanium
frame, soulsteel rivets fusing the layers together with a precision that
spoke of hours she hadn't witnessed. She accepted it with both hands and
turned it slowly, watching her own reflection fracture and reassemble across
the polished surface. It was, she noted, large enough to hide a kender
behind entirely. She chose not to dwell on whether that had been the
specific intention.
Writer: Piknim
Date Mon Mar 16 19:44:39 2026
To Verminasia Shadow Shalonesti All ( Croatoan Drakkara Cayenna Admin )
Subject The Blazing Aurora: {uWhat the Warden Wrought (2/2)
The cloak followed. Topaz dragonskin, heavy and soft simultaneously,
umbric threads sewn in a pattern that resolved as she held it up for
inspection. A Black Moon, vast and absolute, extinguishing the sun.
The Witch-Queen made a sound she would later describe as composed and
dignified and which was, in fact, something between a whisper and a gasp.
She draped the cloak about her shoulders and took up the shield and caught
her reflection in the crystalline surface again. The image didn't fracture
this time. It held.
Piknim looked, she could not help noticing, rather like a Knight.
She had looked like many things in her life. A cutpurse. A nuisance. A
novelty. A useful piece on someone else's board. A countess, a queen, a
kender playing at things too large for her. She had worn every one of those
labels like ill-fitting robes, too long in the hem and too wide in the
shoulder.
This time she had felt it too. In the very marrow of her bones.
"A Knight isn't what you are," Aothien said, before the dark cast of
Drakkara that dominated the domed chamber. "It's who you are. And you are
one, Queen Piknim."
She thought about Telthian's voice. The voice of a vestige who once served
Necrucifer.
"A kender Knight, is it? You blanche at the sight of my blood."
"I look forward to hearing you explain failure on a grand scale
to the Mistress All because something shiny caught your eye."
"You will always be just a kender, and too soft, to emotional,
to do what it takes to become what you desperately hope to be."
She thought about standing on the balcony as the Aurora surged. The light
eating at the southernmost trees. The anger that felt embarrassingly close
to grief.
She thought about Andreyna Sha'enlas, who had tried, and the particular
shape of what so much trying had cost in the end.
Then she put her arm around Aothien Galazios, Knight of Storm Keep, Warden
of Atstlomme, mortal form of the ancient chromatic dragon Rimunath, and
hugged him with the complete unselfconsciousness of a creature for whom
affection had never required justification.
He had been stripped of his Knighthood once, started over at the bottom
amongst the vermin, and earned the mantle again thread by thread across
years of toil in Storm Keep with the particular humility of a Firstborn
learning what it meant to be ordinary. He had come to know, better than
most, what it cost to build something back up from nothing. He had chosen,
against every draconic instinct to take and hoard and remain aloof of lesser
creatures and their affairs, to spend himself on her behalf.
Not because she was Queen.
Because she was her.
"You give me plenty," he said. "More than I could probably ever repay."
She released him and stepped back and reached for words to say that weren't
maudlin and too big or small and came up, briefly, empty.
Then her hand emerged from his pocket with a small ceramic cat charm she
didn't remember finding.
She looked at it.
She looked at him.
"I'll use them well," she said. "I won't burn to a crisp. Promise!"
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