Our Terrible Purpose [Orders Due January 6th]

[TheMeanestGuest]

Friends and companions! Please hold your jeers and your applause. Our Terrible Purpose has been slowly chugging along for the past year and a half, though not here on the CBG. This, of course, simply isn't right. So I'm rectifying that situation and henceforth I will be cross-posting it here as well as continuing it at it's current home, The Frontier. I've spoken to several of you about this setting and game off and on, and it is my hope that by bringing it here I can at last entice you to join me in my designs. Spaces are available, so feel absolutely free to post if you're interested. Or find me on IRC and we can have a chat. Without further ado I'll get right to it.

Our Terrible Purpose is a narrative forum game and setting. Players take on the role of a faction or entity and they act upon the world according to their desires and intents, shaping it to their preferred image. This is not primarily a competitive game. Competition is merely an element that constitutes part of the larger whole. We're writing stories here, and that's what's most important. Your schemes and plans and great ideals will be challenged, and some of them will fall to ruin. You will never have everything that you want, and your hubris will be punished as often as it is rewarded.

I can promise you three things:

1. Your actions will be reflected in the game world. Even if you fail you will be remembered. You'll go out in a blaze of glory, and you will inspire history.
2. Everything passes, no matter how well made.
3. We are going to have fun.

The Rules are simple. You describe to me what you want to do, and I synthesize these player contributions and implement them in updates. You will send your orders to me via private message on the CBG or on The Frontier. You will have Tags at your disposal. A tag is essentially a modifier for your faction or character that invokes a special and particular application of a resource or ability that you possess. Entities and factions can earn new tags as the game progresses. You aren't constrained to tags, and don't feel like you have to resort to them to accomplish your goals. I encourage creativity and outlandishness. Tags fall into four categories: edifices, attitudes, assets and heroes. Let's take a look at the Iron City of Karkeron as an example:

[spoiler=Karkeron]Edifices: The Fortress Karkeron, Its Belching Factories, the Iron Road, Old Blackwater Ports

Attitudes: the Rozier's Legacy, Hot Metal Progress, Baelnish Dignity  

Assets: the Steel-Hat Army, Rennish Stone Giants, Karkerian Steeds

and Heroes: One-Eyed Goearn the Trolmund, Black Orkris – sire of Steeds, the Sergeant, the Surgeon, the Adjutant, the Crone.[/spoiler]

Karkeron wants to make a Titan suit of powered armour for the leader of their giants. To do so we could invoke three tags: One-Eyed Goearn the Trolmund, Its Belching Factories and Hot Metal Progress. That done, we now have old Goearn stomping around in a big coal-fired mech. Woe to his enemies! Tags can only be used once per turn, so use them wisely. That doesn't mean Karkeron's factories can't do anything else, it just means that their ability to enact Terror on the world has now been substantially limited. If Karkeron's player had chosen not to invoke that tag at all, he or she could have accomplished several more moderate endeavors through non-tag orders. As an example, that player could instead equip each Rennish giant with a mercury-filled steel club, flood the Baelnish markets with cheap goods, and build a series of bunkers and redoubts surrounding the Karkerian hills.

Your enemies can also invoke your own tags against you - should this be done in a suitably creative way. Perhaps with enough anomic power and a related tag another player could flood the Baeln and drown Karkeron's Old Blackwater Ports, their levee infrastructure and general construction being woefully inadequate to resist such a great inundation. Trust me that I will be fair in interpreting orders and adjudicating conflicts. I'm not going to sell you down the river until you deserve it.

The only way to determine what is possible is to try it, and I encourage you all to try whatever you and your characters find interesting. The game proceeds in turns generally lasting between five to ten years, but the length will depend to some extent on the scope of the orders that I receive. Keep that in mind when writing them!

Let's get to it.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Our Terrible Purpose

[ic=The Third Law]Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

- Arthur C. Clarke[/ic]

An Understanding of Anomalies

Anomes - or magic, to the uncouth and uneducated - is the practice of imbuing a symbol with aetherial power. The aether - the numinous energy which flows between worlds and realms - cannot be directly accessed. The minds of men possess neither the strength or technique. Rather, this power must be interpreted through analogy and symbolism, be that symbol a phrase, a gesture, a rune, or simple ideation. Such symbols have no power in and of themselves. A practitioner must empower or infuse his symbols with aetherial potency. For the most part, propensity towards this ability is inborn in some few individuals, though with the proper mind, and with rigorous dedication, it may be taught to a willing pupil.

Orthodox

Developed in the cathedral-colleges of the Dominion, the orthodox tradition emphasizes detachment and understanding - a calculated and severe application of anomes. Through the elimination of emotional pollution, and through the inculcation of deeper understanding, the potential power of a practitioners symbol is substantially increased. The development of such skill requires years of intensive schooling.

Heterodox

A term applied primarily by the orthodox to those they view as lesser practitioners of anomes, to those who lack that essential purity of resolve. A living, ever-changing hodge-podge of a thousand magical traditions. The charm of a gutter witch, the potion of a country wizard, the ritual of a tribal shaman. Such techniques vary wildly in method and potency, but all allow for that key ability to access the energies of the aether.

Plenipotent

To mold the raw power of the aether is true sorcery, and this is beyond the ken of mortal men.

- Alright. So you caught me. But you had to know I wasn't telling the whole truth. Fine, fine! If you really must know. -

Other Arts

Arturiscry – This was the first art of the Midani, and it was the first art their children learned. Arturiscry is the mastery of internal forces and energies and their proper application. Wounds close, the spirit is resolved, the body strengthens.

Maniplas – A skill brought from an elsewhere vanished long ago. The subtle method of alteration. It is learned by the inner mind, and not the outer. This process typically requires powerful and delicate pharmacology to act as catalyst.

Cayanics – Anomes lures with thrill and ease, let the outside in and let its power enact your will. The Cayanic art harnesses what is already there, that which is so often beneath the notice of the prideful. If one asks politely Creation will freely share its secrets with you. This is the manipulation of life essence and its contortion into form or function.

Geas – Bind it up in laws, bind it tight with will and words. Creation witnesses, and it will brook no shirkers.

Sinoizë – This is the path of the zirrafim and those foolish enough to follow them. Destroy the body and the mind and reveal what lies beneath.  

Seeming – The secret art of the kthonim. They create what should not be, they destroy what is eternal. Do not believe them.

- Ah, but what work might such craft wreak upon a world? Let us examine the lessons of history, and the folly of those who have come before us. -

The Kthonaion

An Algid Earth hung suspended in the void, its star long dim and cold. On thrones of ice and steel sat the Kthonic Lords, who held that frigid orb in thrall. For an eon none had dared contest their will, and so their most terrible weapons lay beneath the grinding ice and drifting snows, as even those Lords had forgotten their use. Yet upon that Earth remained some few souls, free, or bound in slavery; to be exalted or to be destroyed upon a whim. Perhaps it was the errant prayer of such a soul - cast out to the stars - that precipitated what was to come, or perhaps it was long in design.

That dim and distant star was kindled to life, bright and blazing in its newborn glory. Its light pierced through the void as a knife, and it struck the Algid Earth. As one the kthonim groaned a wailing groan, and their calls echoed upon that Earth and into the now-furious sky. They shook themselves from the strange sleep of frozen ages, and looked out upon the world. The new sun was occluded in the blur of a thousand-thousand wings, and a black rain poured upon the earth, striking it as fire. The zirrafim had come. The Star of the Morning, Heosë herself, and all the Golden Host with her. Apollyon-Kotet threw himself from the earth on coruscating wings of colour, and the very fabric of reality trembled and melted with his passing. He stood before Heosë, and looked upon her with his great and staring eye. "You are loud, and have woken me from well-deserved rest." he said, and he called up from the bowels of the netherhell a pillar of night with which to strike her. But an eon of cold had made him slower than once he was, and Heosë stood not where he struck, and it was Apollyon-Kotet who fell from the sky, his body pierced with seventy-seven solar lances. Slowly were the kthonim driven back upon the field. The zirraf Mammoun wrestled down thousand-armed Nivial and drowned him in a thawing sea even as it was boiled with the rage of his dying, his army wailing upon the shore. Laan, who burned swollen with grotesque and cursed might, who fell apart in Heosë's hands. Cunning Sprezychish, who was driven from his thrice-encircled palace with but a tattered fragment of his soul. And so the old tyranny gave way to one new, and so the choirs sang in Golden Dis.

- You're right, it's all a bit obscure. Frankly, by the look of you, I'd say it's beyond your means, too. No offence intended, of course! Well, let's continue then, and find something more your speed - personally I prefer obscurity to obscenity, but to each his own. -

Her Earthly Dominion

It was that Heosë looked out upon her conquest, and decreed that it must change. It was impure, corrupted with wickedness and sin. Again the Golden Host took wing, and again fire poured down across the land; those few peoples of the world who remained were long-broken, and could not resist the zirrafim. Some men turned upon their fellows, seeing in this their salvation, and Heosë granted them her favour, and the right to rule in her name.

On the banks of the river Alph the zirrafim built the city Dis. Towers as tall as mountains, palaces resplendent with otherworldly glory. The choirs sang upon a marbled square before a marbled hall, where Heosë sat her throne. Their song nurtured the land, and its many scars were slowly healed. A supernal wood grew up about that city, and it was the apotheosis of all woods, sublime in its natural beauty and tranquility, and filled with creatures wonderful and rare. Heosë came to love this wood, and she named it Rem, and could often be found upon its paths.

Far from Rem and Dis and the river Alph the world was a crueler place. The people cried out, now great in number, as they lay prostrate before looming cathedrals. The priest-magi glowered down, indifferent to any suffering. Toil brings purity, they said, and so the people toiled on the earth and below it to serve a distant city they would never see.

For an age were the zirrafim thus contented, but it was that one day a call was heard upon the aether, though it was so very far away. The choirs grew restless and discordant. Heosë stood before her folk, and she knew that she could not long keep them. She said that she had come to love this world too much, and could not depart, and so to her sister Inan-Ishtar she passed her scepter and her crown. The host was gathered, and departed with festival and song. They took Silver for their banner, for Gold would always remain to Dis. Some few of the zirrafim chose to linger, those who loved the world as Heosë did, or who could not bear to leave her. Things were much as they had been before, though Dis seemed not to shine as brightly, and the choir's song was not so loud as it had been once, now long ago, and it bore a note of melancholy.

True vengeance bides its time, waiting for that perfect moment. The kthonim had sown their progeny upon the Algid Earth, only for that legacy to be expunged in fire and light. Ere he was drowned, it was that the dread prince Nivial saw his fate written upon the stars. He called his sons to him, and he threw each and every one into the deepest pit of that ancient and nether realm from which his people came. He who should possess the strength to climb back out should be one worthy to avenge him, he decreed. It was Nivias the Rozier who swam the Acheron, who slew twelve of his brothers upon the gloaming plain, who won his life in a game of chess against cunning Sprezychish, and who survived his father's trial. He returned to the world of his birth, his power grown great.

He shook the ground beneath those grim cathedrals, and their foundations splintered and cracked, and their towers fell in upon themselves. He lashed the priest-magi with whips of infernal fire, and filled their lungs with cold water, and called the spirits of the restless dead to drag them down to the nether, and all their spells availed them not. It was Arram the Sorcerer who ruled in Heosë's stead in the far lands of the earth, and so the Rozier came in fury to stand before him. Their duel was long, and their spells gouged the earth and cracked the sky, but at last did Arram submit. Seized with a fear greater than the one he held for the zirrafim unmanfully did he beg for mercy. The Rozier grinned, and said the skill he had shown was fine, and for its display was Arram bound as slave and apprentice. An army grew about Nivias the Rozier, and so he found his father's ancient forges locked deep beneath the earth, and he opened them with the key written in his blood. Belching smoke the furnaces warmed, and soon the flumes ran with white-hot metal, and the air was filled with the cacophony of hammer upon steel, and great titans were risen up as in elder days. Her nations fell, and at last Heosë was roused to action.

The generals Semmias and Esenna went forth, riding upon the backs of crystal dragons, and they marshaled all the power that then remained to Dis. The sky was black with storm when the armies met upon the plain of Sermet. Zirrafim wheeled in the sky, great and golden phalanxes beneath them, lines of proud centaurs upon the flanks, and strange creatures or machines like gossamer spiders towering above. Nivias the Rozier stood in company with all his witches and magi before his army. He had dug up the skeletons of vanquished kthonim from the earth, or plucked them from the depths of the sea, hatred still burning in empty eyes. He had called upon giants, and they came to him bearing wicked axes, or trees plucked from the earth as clubs. He was master to a screaming and seething horde, all the slaves of Dis now freed, armed with demon swords and mail. He had built many machines of war, and his titans strode forth clad in ornate armour plating - enormous machines bathed in steam and festooned with cannon - and buzzing things like metal wasps circled about them.

The armies met. Violence incomprehensible, and millions dead, swallowed up by the earth beneath them, crushed beneath some roaring beast, souls unraveled by arcane fog, or bodies blasted with black fire or searing light. Semmias came down upon Nivias, and the dragon Anendrein took him up in its jaws and swallowed him down in one instant, and a moan of utter sorrow went up from his army. But Anendrein seemed to flutter - as the wings of a hummingbird do - and its crystal scales began to melt and drip, and Semmias leaped free just as his dragon vanished in a swirling column of eldritch numina. There stood Nivias the Rozier, whole and unharmed, and Semmias screamed in rage and dove at Nivias, solar lance poised before him. He faltered in the air, some spell upon him, and fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Nivias stepped forward, and spat upon his face, and drove a dagger through his eye. Esenna had been lost in the chaos of a maneuver on the right flank, and the army of Dis began to falter, and slowly a keening went up from among the zirrafim, , and of a sudden they made to flee. Near all were ridden down, or shot from the sky, or dragged from where they hid. The way to Dis lay open.

Nivias rode at the front of his army upon a cloud, and at last he was before the gate. Heosë awaited him. She sat languidly in the shallows of the river Alph, nine zirrafim about her bearing lance and shield. Heosë laughed as she spoke: "I am undone! The scion of my foe has come to me, but it is not his hand that sees me fall." and she held up her wrists, and all saw that golden blood poured from ragged slits. Nivias looked upon the water then, and he howled with rage as he saw the design Heosë drew upon its surface. He threw a spell upon her, but the zirrafim locked their shields together, the spell shrieked and sparked before them, but it fell spent upon the ground. A moment more, and Heosë sighed, and her golden form fell into the water with a splash, her life at last spent into the river.

Mammoun stepped from the shadow of the gate as if peeled from the stone itself, skin black as pitch, the great sphinx Anayis at his side, his starry cloak upon his back. He spoke then: "Does your revenge satisfy you, princeling? Your burden is lifted, and the haze clears from your mind, but you will not desecrate this sacred place." Nivias only snarled, and he bade his giants forward. They roared and swung their axes fiercely, but Mammoun simply danced aside, and he killed each one with a single strike of his palm. Nivias shook with rage, and he screamed at his magi and his witches, and each flung their killing spells upon Mammoun, but they dripped from his starry cloak like water. Mammoun stepped forward, and the army gathered before him flinched back. Nivias was still, a look of utter fury upon his face, and it seemed then that surely Mammoun would be destroyed. But nothing happened. And so Mammoun took one more step forward, and gently he placed his hand upon Nivias, and he spoke again: "Your father's power slips from your grasp, and your victory turns to ash in your mouth. The zirrafim are not beyond a petty revenge." and he laughed softly and bitterly. Mammoun seized Nivias by the throat, and hoisted him aloft, and crushed him in his hands. The army the Rozier had gathered for his terrible purpose fled as his body was tossed upon the shore.

The zirrafim there gathered bowed their heads in respect, and each departed. It was that Mammoun sighed then, and turned, and swept his gaze across Golden Dis one final time, beholding its fine gardens and palaces, its domes and its towers. He took up the pallid body of Heosë - her wrists slashed, golden blood still dripping, and he left that place.

- And a few small morsels to sate you. -

Errata

The Dead Sands of Sermet

A desolate wasteland sundered from the sea. A green and bountiful paradise, once, before the Rozier had his way. Dead machines, blasted bones, and timeless wandering horrors haunt its fields. There were teeming cities here, filled with men, but now broken walls bedecked in shadows are all that remain. Tombs both grandiose and elegant rise from the shifting sands, from the cracked and shattered earth. Here lie ancient lords in all their glittering regalia, warrior-poets in bare repose, witch kings wrapped in a dozen curses - final gift of fearful servants dreading a master ill contented by death's embrace. Water is precious and scarce, but blood runs freely, for the few men who dare to live here are hard and cruel.

Salamander

Large, predatory and amphibious. Salamanders are among the most dangerous creatures to inhabit the Sweltered Weald. Already several feet long at birth, salamanders never stop growing, and truly ancient specimens can easily exceed a length of over one hundred feet from the nose to the tip of the tail. Their skin is smooth and moist, but seems to exude an inordinate amount of heat. They range in colour from black, through green, to a light and dusty brown. Salamanders rarely stray far from water, though sightings in drier climes are not unheard of. They tend to avoid highly trafficked waterways, but a hungry salamander will not hesitate to prey on an isolated party deep within the Weald. As they age, salamanders develop a rude cunning, and some even learn to speak in the tongues of men. They are strong and fast, and can eviscerate with sharp claws and gnashing teeth. Their most potent weapon, however, is the deadly vapor they may exhale in astounding quantities. A man enveloped will asphyxiate in under ten seconds, and engaging a salamander on low-lying terrain is functionally suicidal.

Corner Snep

Sneps hail from some strange and outer dimension, and they are innately free of physical constraints. They seem to possess an inborn and irrepressible desire for mischief and take advantage of their form and abilities in the furtherance of this pursuit at nearly any opportunity. The presence of a snep is often announced by its distinctive tittering laughter, followed shortly by the tinkling of broken glass, the crash of splintering furniture, or some other minor calamity. Under most circumstances sneps are difficult to spot, though with a careful eye they can be located as a minute disturbance of light, a near imperceptible skewing of ones vision. Should a snep choose to reveal itself - usually to mock or further torment its hapless victim - it will invariably appear as a disembodied and grinning row of sharp teeth. As their name alludes, they prefer to reside in corners and can move between joined corners instantaneously. Sneps bear some similarity to the sinister and deadly bonhombr, and some theorize that they are in fact the juvenile form of this dangerous creature.

Fury

High above the clouds the kiss of the sun is felt the keenest, but lingers only lightly upon the air. The black void caresses the earth, and the skin between worlds grows thinnest. There are places that are neither here nor there, but in between; it is in these places that Furies are born. A fury is long, lithe, and sedate, and floats placidly across the tall sky on gossamer wings. Furies are often solitary creatures, but consort from time to time in small groups, singing to each other in their melodious language - sharing poetry and philosophy. Their skin is hard and shines wetly in the light. Their forms are irregular, and furies are known to rearrange their anatomy in ways that please them. Their features seem to require some degree of symmetry, however, and a fury with an uneven number of eyes, limbs or teeth has never been observed. For the most part furies are somber creatures, each feeling the singular ache for a home they shall never know, and their hearts are filled with sadness and longing. But beneath this melancholy pith is a seed of implacable rage, and a fury aroused to anger is a horrific sight to behold - grey skin flushing a cascade of burnt colours, multifarious claws and fangs poised to rend and tear. Zirraf and dragon alike have fallen beneath the wailing onslaught of an enraged fury.

Apton

Great raptors of exceptional intelligence and ability, now few in number. Though their origins are uncertain, they claim some kinship with dragons. Aptons are among a handful of races capable of manipulating aetherial energy, and like zirrafs are universally gifted in this regard - though their skill is slowly learned with experience over many decades. An apton stands taller than a man, and some are of truly immense proportion. Aptons are strong and agile, and can easily eviscerate a man with beak or talon, or pluck him from the ground entire. Plumage varies from one individual to the next, and there are several known colours, all of which seem to possess some bearing on temperament. It is unclear whether this relationship is inherent or developed, as aptons are universally born with feathers of mottled brown, and only grow into their adult plumage over time. Red aptons are passionate and quick to judgement, but unerringly loyal to those who have gained their trust. White aptons are keen but aloof, and often consider themselves above worldly concerns, looking down as they do from such a height. Black aptons are prideful and acquisitive, and are almost always the largest of their kin. Aptons have a strained relationship with men, for the Rozier came near to achieving his goal of their extermination ere he died at Mammoun's hand.

the Town of Dray

The Rozier came to the town of Dray, and on his head he wore a crown of flames. "You shall make yourselves free!" he cried to the people, his voice ringing with joy. The men and women of Dray turned to him then, and they favoured him with the ire of their stares. They misliked his words, and so they shouted and they shook their fists and they chased him off. He slept that night beneath a mountain, and he dreamed of a time before hunger. The next morning the Rozier returned to Dray, and on his head he wore a coronet of iron. "You shall make yourselves free!" he thundered, his shoulders quaking with rage. But the men and women of Dray felt no fear of him, and they took up their arms against him. With fire and shot they assailed him, and so they chased him off. That night the Rozier slept in the soft bows of a young tree, and he dreamed of heart threads and narrow places in the sky. Morning came, and so the Rozier came again to Dray. He wore empty air upon his brow. "You shall make yourselves free," he said a third time. His voice was dark and oily and it was dreadful to hear. The people could not now deny him, and so they did as they were bade.

the Tower of Tebeth

In the dusty northern hills of Enn is the tower Tebeth, a great monolith of fused yellow glass and shining dry stone. This monument upon the orb of Kothon contends among its peers for the greatest esteem and regard among the petty followers of the Rozier, being as it is the site of his first felling. They say he lay there dying as the tower was assailed by two armies sent from the Golden City to destroy him. His throat had been torn out by the zirraf Hethan's blade, and his physikers and his automatices attended him, trying vainly with all their art and all their skill to save their lord's mortal form.

They had fought a long and grueling campaign in that desert country, but they had driven the great centaur herds before them, and they had sacked the armed city of Esret, sat at a slow and winding bend of the river Gram. The Rozierey had made quarters for the season, and Nivias the Rozier considered all his myriad plots and plans and strategies to destroy the city Dis. The zirrafim arrived very suddenly in the country and commenced their attack on the Rozier and his army. After ten days of battle the Rozierey made their retreat to Tebeth, their last stronghold on that edge of the sea. They carried the Rozier amidst them and guarded him closely, for he was gravely wounded. The speed and skill of the zirraf Hethan had overwhelmed him, and they say that it was woeful to see him fallen upon his knees, his clothes soaked crimson.

His generals had been summoned to his side with all haste, but the hour of their arrival was uncertain. The soldiers of the Rozierey manned their guns and held fast against the bombardment. The scuttling meccali arrived and with their sharpened and heated claws they cut the gates apart and rushed within. They were held at bay for a night by the blood and valour of the soldiers there, with vicious and desperate fighting in each chamber and hallway. Nevertheless the Rozier died of his wounds, his soul departing, his surgeons dumb and deaf with despair. The footman Draud stood at the last door to defend his master's body, and bedecked in black armour and grief he fought Hethan for the passing of an hour. They say the zirraf tore the door asunder, and the few gathered there about his body were all silent, each prepared to die. But in that moment the Rozier returned – some report in new form, others that he stood in the body of another man who had lain dying of his wounds. Having retrieved or retained some deadly skill from beyond that veil he slaughtered the meccali and drove the zirrafim away.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Your Tags can be found below. Leadership is not a tag - merely informative.

Note: Many of these places are essentially blank slates waiting to be filled in. Only their edges have any detail. If you have an interest in playing a particular faction I will invite you to consult with me, and we will collaborate to develop tags for you. This goes for my extant players as well.

[spoiler=The Fugue Seas]Amasque – Morrow
- The Red City, farthest port of the Phoadrim -

Leadership: the Curia of Amasque / the Daladrim Cabal
Edifices: Heru's High Walls, Har Sabran the riverguard, Rotting Cruscus - den of thieves
Attitudes: Avarice & Acumen - virtues of the Phoadrim, Star of the South
Assets: the Tagmatic Army, Amasquani Galleos, Mildewed Plundermen
and Heroes: Abibaal - Imperial Consort [abroad], Mithonbaal, Oban Prince-Killer, Admunt of Sorm

Aterine
- Acadion reaching to touch the sky, refuge of the Zinist magi -

Ath - Thomas Berubeg
- White towers by the sea, a Nivian College burrowed beneath -

Diom
- A placid isle where time passes slowly, where the gulls circle overhead. Colony of Amasque -

Elyx
- Country of the native Essels. They adopt the Phoadrim way of life, even as they resent the impositions of these foreigners -

Hayne - Jehoshua [?]
– Nethrast's humbled rival, but rich and powerful still -

the Iridescent Empire - Seon [?]
– Oh Bejeweled Sensinsal! Bless us Mother Empress! -

Leadership: the Empress
Edifices: the Shuddering Palace, the Cerulean Harbour
Attitudes: Utter Devotion, Trembling Ecstasy
Assets: the Imperial Soen, the Empyrean Flight, Our Fields of Bounteous Green, Any Pleasure or Prize
and Heroes: the Empress

Meyrone
- A Haynish colony founded by men eager to be their own masters -

Nephrin
– An old and proud colony. Of an age with Nethrast, Hayne and Amasque. Only now has it become a true city -

Nethrast - Iggy
- Sails, salt and sea. Nethrast perched above. Here the Blue Mysteries hold sway -

Leadership: the Lord-Guardian Heuther and the Nethish Curia / Master Rone and the Elder Council
Edifices: Heuther's Keep, the Blue Temple
Attitudes: Avarice & Acumen - virtues of the Phoadrim, Sanguine Spirit and Mystery
Assets: the Blue College, the Fee, Nethish Galleos
and Heroes: Ageless Heuther, Master Rone, the magus Domovoi

Seharast
– A colony of Nethrast, and enemy to its mother city. The Phoadrim here are free-spirited, and they reject the tyrannies their fathers endured -

Leadership: the Curia of Seharast
Edifices:
Attitudes: Avarice & Acumen - virtues of the Phoadrim, We Will Not Bow
Assets: Seharan Galleos
and Heroes: Nadric Wave-Rider[/spoiler]

[spoiler=The Nitheing Plain]Himrad
- A timber-town at the top of the wilderness. Home to some few hundred miserable outcast Grenns -

Leadership:
Edifices:
Attitudes: Baelnish Dignity
Assets: Virgin Wilderness
and Heroes:

Kyne Country
- A loose confederation of five Kynic tribes possessing a common law. Dominated by the Masentines and the Samish -

Leadership: the Kyne-Meet
Edifices: the Girding Walls of Samsarax
Attitudes: Kyne-Courage, Lofty Aspirations
Assets: a Raucous Host
and Heroes:

Nime
- The adopted homeland of the Nitheings, their rights recognized and guaranteed by treaty with the city of Amasque -

the Dominion of Pardes
- The maneater's demesne -

Leadership: zirraf-of-exultations
Edifices: Pardes the Mountain-Home
Attitudes: Insatiable Hunger, Piety and Servitude
Assets: Zerrub Regiments, Zerrub Slavers, Dog Soldiers, a Surfeit of Slaves
and Heroes: the great eater

Sakyntes
- The hill kingdom of the hardy Sakynes -

Leadership: Old King Taeqos
Edifices: the Tall Bridges
Attitudes: Kyne-Courage, Our Patrimony
Assets: a Raucous Host, Call in a Favour: the Temic Soen
and Heroes: Old King Taeqos, Hriam the Soothsayer

the Temic Soen
– School and fief of the exiled Athican Temics. Under the protection of King Taeqos of Sakyntes -[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Rem]Grist
- Oldest and greatest among the blackwater ports. Owner of a treacherous reputation -

Leadership: Gordis King
Edifices: Grist-on-Blackest - built on mounds
Attitudes: Baelnish Dignity, Deceit and Treachery
Assets: Mildewed Plundermen, Gristing Slavers, a Zerrub Regiment
and Heroes:

Karkeron - Secretariat
- The Iron City of the Rozierey, risen up amidst the sweating jungles of Rem through sheer force of will -

Leadership: The Cabal of Karkeron
Edifices: The Fortress Karkeron, Its Belching Factories, the Iron Road, Old Blackwater Ports
Attitudes: the Rozier's Legacy, Hot Metal Progress, Baelnish Dignity
Assets: the Steel-Hat Army, Rennish Stone Giants, Karkerian Steeds, the Thought Engine
and Heroes: One-Eyed Goearn the Trolmund, Black Orkris – sire of Steeds, the Sergeant, the Surgeon, the Adjutant, the Crone

Nai Remmis
– Beautiful and fine, the last country of the centaurs and the men of zin. But how can it compare to what has been lost? -

Rugh
- City of the clever Crossways Prince. Rugh has maintained a careful independence by playing each neighbour against the other -

Leadership: the Crossways Prince
Edifices: the Toll-House
Attitudes: Baelnish Dignity, Clever Diplomacy
Assets: Mildewed Plundermen
and Heroes:[/spoiler]

[spoiler=The Northerlands]Eades
- An independent colony of the industrious Teschai, nestled in a quiet cove of stony shores -

the Inevitable Union - Thlayli
- Here rules the inscrutable godling Mahol. His Union exists only to serve his will and whim -

Noiro
- A melting pot of cultures, waystation between north and south. Here are Teschai and Phoadrim, Sensileans and Rozierey. Trade is the lifeblood of the Noireen -

Leadership:
Edifices:
Attitudes: Cosmopolitan Vigour
Assets: Noireni Galleos
and Heroes:

Rontes
- Through fire and slaughter the Bractemenn endure. The Rontemm will never forget, and they will never forgive -

Sedec
– A fair green country. On his wedding day Nír gave this land in gift to his beloved bride, and still the Serpent Queen of Seadh rules it in his name and in honour of his memory -[/spoiler]

[TheMeanestGuest]

Update Zero: Rest for the Wicked

c. 150 Years





- the zirraf, Mammoun: "Does your revenge satisfy you, princeling?" -

And the Rozier's body had fallen upon the ground, and oily black smoke poured out from it. His cabal saw Wrath writ plain upon the face of Mammoun, and they were filled with a terrible fear, and with the craft of their spells each strove then to flee. Word of the death of Prince Nivias spread as a wildfire through the gathered army of Rozierey, and they despaired.

In many directions the greatest number of that army fled, heedless: deep into the Country of Rem, or back across the burned and ravaged Field of Sermet, or onto the turbulent Fugue Sea. As they ran their fear bred exhaustion, and slowly they forgot the cause of their flight until it troubled them no more. At last they took their rest, and found new lands to live in. But the Generals and Magi of the Rozier's army had not been so rash, and they had ran hardly far at all when they knew that Mammoun had not set himself to hound their trails. Each among them thought then of the wealth of Dis, of its thousand thousand treasures. They gathered to confer among themselves, and with harsh words that boomed across the sky they called out to the army that it return. Many did. Those who felt some loyalty to these masters, or those wise enough to fear the lashes of their Lords over the absent lances of the Zirrafim.

As the army gathered anew - lesser than it once was - a Council was called among the greatest Talents. At once two were placed above the rest in the esteem of their fellows, for they had been the Hands of the Rozier, and had won glory for the craft of their art and the fury of their spells. Arram the Sorcerer stood upon one side, and the magi who followed him were many, for the raw powers that he commanded stood now beyond compare, and those present remembered well his long duel with the Rozier. Opposed to him stood Breah Corine, who would later be Empress, but who was then known as the Fair, for her beauty could bewitch any man or woman - should she will it. With her stood the Rozier's witches, for they knew that Arram loved them not. Each upon the other flung accusing words, calling the other cowardly and feeble and, indeed, responsible for the death of their Prince. So too did each claim the greater share of the treasure that awaited. Some among that Council were filled with dread, for they knew that a pernicious violence hung upon the air. They rebuked the authority of both claimants, and they took the magician Nale as their leader, and they went into the North. There they built a fine city of marble towers against a clear blue sky, and they raised up walls of white stone tall and strong to gird it, and they named that place Ath. A Nivian College there was made for the study of Talent and Anomaly, so that those magi who studied there should never forget their power, and indeed should increase it. In its halls and beneath them were made many wonderful things, and many horrible things.

At last Arram and Breah had been roused to the very heights anger, and each knew that from the other they would receive no blessing or allowance. They repaired to their respective camps to plot and brood, and they called their Captains to them to plan for war. Each emerged on the morrow with the vigours of many spells upon them, and with armies marshaled. They met before the walls of Dis, empty houses looking on in silence. Pike phalanxes a hundred thousand strong stood opposed, and their ranks stretched from the wall to the horizon. On some unseen signal each moved forward taking up fighting chants to unnerve their foe, and they ground one into the other, and the screams of dying men were heard upon the air. Amidst and above them mage and witch danced the dance of spells, and many fell burning from the sky, or were pulped upon the ground, or stood drooling as idiots amongst the churning mass of soldiery, minds emptied by a poem. Arram the Sorcerer and Breah Corine stood before each other on the field, and any who drew near were turned to drifting ash or pooling sludge, for the curses they heaped upon each other were no longer simple words, but bestowed with deadly power. The Fair Witch raised her hands up to the heavens, and with a song she called the ghost of the Moon down from the sky, and she set its gnashing teeth and rending claws upon the Sorcerer. But Arram held secreted within his palm an ember of Laan's ancient fire, and with a flick of his wrist he threw it on the Moon's ghost as he leaped aside. With an echoing boom a plume of blue flame a mile high blossomed amidst the fighting armies, and many were consumed by its heat, or driven mad by its whispering dust.

Quiescence reigned as the men and women still alive picked themselves up from where they had fallen, and each was shaken by the terror of that spell. It was Arram who arose first, and in the hearts of his giants he placed a burning courage, and they strode out upon the field and where the soldiers of the Witch had rallied they crushed them on their clubs or beneath their feet. With a scream of rage Breah renewed her attack, and she cast a sticking net of grief upon the Sorcerer, who parted it with his hand and a laugh. The Fair Witch summoned all the killing spells she had left, but they did not avail her, for Arram's power was too great. As the Sorcerer sat upon a cloud and circled her with ten thousand blades of frozen air she howled her despair, and she drew a cloak of night about herself and ran from that place as the dregs of her army were destroyed. So the city of Dis passed to Arram the Sorcerer, as he had long desired, and he made himself its Lord.

---

Nine zirrafim stood about their sovereign as she bled her life into the Alph, each one burdened by sorrow and duty. When at last she died, they went before Mammoun and bowed, and gave to him parting words, for they knew he would refuse Heosë's mantle. They left him to his solemn task, and went their separate ways. Perhaps some went beyond the Earth to seek out the Silver Host and Inan-Ishtar and so bind themselves to her, or perhaps some sought out solitude and peace amidst the stars, or beneath the sea, or perhaps they desired only to find some small joy in a forgotten place, whatever that joy might be. But three at least remained, for they loved Rem too well to stray far from that country. Usas, whose touch had nurtured the greatest trees of the wood, and had made them strong and tall beyond the reckoning of any other tree. Hounn, who had driven the fell creatures of the elder dark before him with lance in hand when they sought to defile the wood with their passing. And Aeia, who was handmaiden to Heosë, and who danced on fields of flowers. These three made between them a Covenant that they should not abandon Rem, and that they would protect it from the evils of the world.

They watched with trepidation as the Sorcerer ensconced himself within their city, and they grew afraid as his power waxed full and he came to rule that country, and to shape it to his will. The wood grew hot and twisted in his thrall, and he sent his men into its depths on the backs of furious steeds to drive out any who yet dwelt there in defiance of his rule. The Covenant would not then face him, but for many years they worked in secret to resist him, and they kept glades within the wood where those who still loved the memory of Heosë could take respite. But the Sorcerer carved strong castles from the mountains to guard the borders of his realm, and from their battlements his armies espied all who came and went, and any who sought to pass were hunted without mercy. He built a looming grey tower in the city of Dis and tore down all others so that his should stand the tallest, and from it he sent out his many flying eyes to spy upon the country, so that he should know all that transpired within it. The Covenant knew that soon it would be that they could hide themselves and their folk no longer, and so they resolved to cast him down.

A call went out to those few who had survived the horrors of the Field of Sermet, and without hesitation they came to take up their old duty. Again one final time they girded themselves in golden plate, and again one final time did they take up their swords. A call went out to the Centaurs of the wood, and they too answered, and were led by their King, Rhomes, who was the son of fallen Semmias. By the secret ways of the twisting Weald they come upon the city, and with gentle word and caress did Aeia coax favour from the walls of Dis, and for her they opened passage. The soldiers of the Covenant charged through, for no longer could they restrain themselves, and the city awoke to their cries of vengeance. They tore the Rozierey from stolen homes and slew them in the streets. They mounted the great stairs, and the Sorcerer's men who dared stand before them were thrown from the walls. The gates were opened, and the herds of the Centaurs galloped through the streets. But Arram had awoken, and he stood upon the height of his tower and called lightning down upon the invaders to kill them were they stood, and he summoned a bitter wind to lash them to the bone, and the Covenant was shaken by his fury. The Sorcerer espied the zirrafim as they did battle with his acolytes, and he leaped from his tower to land softly upon the ground. Hounn dove at him from the air, solar lance before him, but he was struck by a searing column of flame and fell, his wings burned. He strove forward to duel the Sorcerer, and he swatted the men of Roziery to the ground before him. Arram merely smiled, and he whispered a single word, and a pillar of night was in his hand, and then it was through Hounn's heart. Usas cried out, and he called upon the memory of the wood that was, and roots burst from the ground. They grappled the Sorcerer, and sought to strangle him, and Usas drew near with his lance. But the Sorcerer would not be undone, and the roots grew sick and died ere Usas reached him, and Arram flayed the zirraf with knives of burning stone. The battle raged, but of the three zirrafim only Aeia still stood, and if she should fall the army of the Covenant knew they would then be lost. It fell to Heosë's maiden to end it, and she danced her flowered dance, and the spells of the Sorcerer and his acolytes could not reach her. She was before him then, suddenly, and she struck at him with the deathblow of her palm, and nearly did she succeed. But golden blood trickled down upon the stones, for Arram's live sword had jumped into his hand, and it had skewered her through the belly. She fell, and the Sorcerer laughed once more, for he knew that he had won. It was then that Rhomes, the King of the Centaurs, was filled with a powerful rage. A solar lance formed in his hands. He reared high upon his legs, and with a mighty throw he tossed his lance, and its flight was so sudden that the Sorcerer saw it not. It pierced him through his mouth, and so he fell, stone dead.

Quiet fell upon the city, and the battle stood still. The King Rhomes spoke then: "You men of Rozierey, your Lord is fallen, and for what now do you fight? Fly from this place, and I shall be merciful." And so those who yet remained threw down their weapons, and they fled. Rhomes looked out upon the carnage, upon the still bodies of the zirrafim, and he knew only sorrow. With great chains he tore down the grey tower of the Sorcerer, and he set the city to a blaze, for it was not the place it once was. In a secret grove did he bury the three zirrafim, and three great trees were planted to mark their place of rest. He took his people into the West, and amidst the forest they made a beautiful city of wooden boughs and leaves of emerald green, and they named it Nai Remmis in memory of the beauteous country that had been. There they knew peace, for a time.

---

Filled with bitterness, Breah set out alone into the North, for her kin and her servants alike had passed from the world. Her power was diminished, for she had been wounded in the fight, and her greatest spells - years in the making - had been exhausted in a single day. She cast off her name, then, and placed a mask upon her face, for she found herself beautiful no longer. She walked the dull sands of the Fugue Coast until she found a stillness within her heart, and on that spot she planted a golden seed. She lay atop it, and nursed it with her warmth, and she whispered to it the words of her desire. The seed knew nothing of her deeds, and it had never heard her name. It was moved by gratitude and love, and so it strove to grant her wish. It bloomed then in fullness, and rose well-formed as a wonderful and soaring house of countless spires and domes, and it pulsed with heat and life, and jewels grew upon it. The folk of that land were drawn to it by a silent song, and they prostrated themselves before it. A masked woman stood alone atop that house, and to herself she granted the lofty title of Empress, and the people willingly and with joy set themselves to her service. A city grew about that Shuddering Palace, and it sought to do with stone and metal what had already been done with shell and flesh. Few could resist the allure of Bejeweled Sensinsal, and its people spread across the land. So grew the enmity between the Sensileans and the Athicans, and the land between them was made a desert by their ire. The Magi of the College argue and debate, and they wonder who should dare possess the power to oppose them. They know her not, though a familiar note is carried on the silent song of her house.

But the wars of old are over and done, and slowly peace nurtures the return of civilization. Along the River Blackest and the Lake of Baeln cities grow as weeds amidst the shallows, haphazard stacks of mildewed wood and mossy stones. The Baelnings ply their trade upon the water, and the pearls of their lake and the fine lacquers of Nai Remmis are traded along the river, until they should reach the sea and the waiting hands of the Phoadrim. Mariners and traders, their cities grow fat on the prices they extract in Ath and Sensinsal alike. The Fugue is calm, but its placidity seems somehow brittle, and woe to him whose careless deeds should break it.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Update One: Tremble in Ecstasy

Thirty Years



- the magus, Domovoi: "It takes a fool to achieve the impossible, for it is he who knows no limits." -

- the king, Rhomes: "Fly from this place, and I shall be merciful." -

A strange age has crept upon the world, unnoticed and unbidden. Men have found themselves their own masters, and oblivious delight settles upon them. The tendrils of prosperity snake across the grey waters of the Fugue, and the cities perched upon its shores grow fat on the bounty of spice and salt, of gold and silver.

In Sensinsal the Empress has decreed that Delight shall be her gift to the people, and in grand promenade a hundred and a hundred more of her acolytes dance through the streets of the city, flinging spells of Rapture upon the roaring crowds. The city's bells rang a chorus of joy, silken banners waved from every tower, a rain of colour was carried on a sweet wind, and every heart beat in time to the rhythm of the Shuddering Palace. Waves of emotion rolled out from that city, and it was said that they broke upon the countryside for miles around. The ardour of the Sensileans is undeniable, and the Empress channels the strength of their love into newer and grander works. A great pier of white travertine reaches out into the waves, beckoning vessels from the farthest reaches of the world into the harbour of Sensinsal. A market has been made of the quayside, boisterous and overflowing, stretching near a mile along the cerulean waters of the bay - a thousand tents of bright canvas rising to greet each dawn. It is said that any pleasure or prize may be had here, so long as one is willing to pay the price.

Sensilean silver slides palm to palm from Ath to Amasque, and grinning Phoadrim merchants are but too eager to take a greater share. The Curia of Amasque - the council of its merchant-houses - lengthens its reach along the winding ways of the river Blackest. In the muddy shallows west of Cruscus they have risen up a strong stone tower, and manned it with tall tension bows, machines capable of flinging a long bolt across the width of the river - and through the hull of a blackship on the way. The corsairs of the river fume at this imposition; they strike at the tower in the night, plundermen leaping from mildewed junks to wreak pillage and murder under the cover of darkness. Each time they have been driven off, for the soldiers of Amasque in their mail-coats are stern and solid foes. And so the corsairs seize Amasquani traders when they can, and they flay the crews of captured ships and hang the skins from the gunwales in grizzly decoration. The tenacity of these raiders seems somehow uncommon, and some grow to suspect that the hand of Lother, erstwhile Prince of Cruscus, is somehow involved. Still, for now those ships that ply the Blackest openly must call at the tower and pay the Curia's toll, or forfeit more than a simple handful of silver when making port downriver.

None should call the Curia idle, for its sestertii do not linger long in the vault before they are set to work. A curtain of granite begins to gird the burgeoning city, tanned workmen sweating in the tropical sun as they clear back the tangled roots of the forest, placing stone upon stone upon stone, fixing them one to the other with a black and viscous mortar. The Heruan wall rises, and it seems none too soon, for the Nitheings of the plain have come south. Dark and vicious men pierced and tattooed, bearing cruel stabbing spears and little mercy. They raid the outlying hamlets, killing, stealing and raping. The Curia sends out its soldiers in reply, but the Nitheings melt away into the woods. On a clear day the smoke of the fires can be seen from the walls of Amasque itself, and the people grow afraid to venture out. They laugh nervously and say that the sea is their father, and wonder what good the land has done them. The northern farms empty, the city grows crowded with refugees, and the Phoadrim grumble of peasants in the streets. They curse the savages for troubling them now, just as their city sits poised on the cusp of a greater eminence.

-----

At last the weavers have finished their work, and three flowers - three temples - blossom on the King's Lake, and they bask placidly in the warmth of the sun. The lake is full with traffic, and small craft dart to and fro, many carry supplicants - centaur and man alike - eager to embrace the wisdom and tranquillity granted by the blessing of the Keepers of the new temples. Night falls, and the petals curl slowly closed, the glass or crystal of which they are made bending gently by some obscure craft or magic. In the darkness they glow softly with an inner light, a soothing balm upon the worries of the people of Nai Remmis. These are the Lotus Shrines of the Zirrafim, and they stand so that the world as it was should never be forgotten, and so that it should always be aspired to. The Keepers nurture their flock in mind and spirit, and from each faithful soul they gather a mote of pure essence, and thread it amidst their design. With new power they have called the forgotten souls of the Ustey, the ancient water horses of the Alph, from the silt and the muck. Galloping swiftly beneath the coursing waters of the realm, the Keepers have set the Ustey as their watch upon Nai Remmis, to protect lost travellers far from home, and to bring word of trespass and deceit to the ear of Rhomes, King of the Centaurs, Champion of the Zirren.

But not all of the King's subjects are contented by the peace of his domain, and brash young men raised on tales of bygone glory ache for their own chance at heroism. The clan of the Hadan Centaurs has raised a new Lord, Tristam. He is strong and passionate in his youth, and he has demanded of his King the right to try himself against the Rozierey through the rigour of war. He has never known these men, but he hates them nonetheless. The King refuses him: "I have granted the Rozierey who remain in Rem my mercy, and this has been our bargain. I am no capricious tyrant, to renege upon my word for the demands of the Hadan clan. I forbid this course, and you shall not have my protection should you defy me. Do not be so eager to cast aside peace for pride. Go now, and think on why I bid you thus." he said before the court. Tristam left then in silence, his gaze cast down upon the floor. He rode out from the capital, his companions beside him, and he considered only the injustice of his denial. He came before his gathered people, and he spat words of fire into their ears, and told them fine tales of the glory they deserved, and more still of the cowardice of their old and foolish King. "Rhomes may have once been greatest among all our folk, but age has unmanned him, and his heart has grown soft and weak. He treasures not the heat of battle, and instead desires only the comforts of his Palace and the simpering flattery of his sycophants. Let the Hadan remind him of the valour of the Centaurs!" he said. And the warriors he had gathered cheered him, and set themselves bound for Karkeron, and into the sweating and sweltered depths of the Weald.

The Karkerian Hills echo with the noise of industry. Hear the thwack of the axe as it bites into the flesh of the tree, hear the plink of the pick as it strikes the rock in twain, and hear the whisper of the dust as it rises to the beat of marching feet. The Cabal of Karkeron at last comes out from that grey fastness, and they bear purpose aloft before them. For many years the people of the woods have crowded about this last castle of the Rozierey, seeking the protection of its long shadow against the terrors that lurk the forest floor. They have struggled against the encroaching Weald, beating it back with fire and with blade to eke out whatever paltry existence that they might. But here are the Rozier's mages, and with clarity do they instruct the people in sound and simple technique. Wage no war with the Weald that you need not, for the bounty of its ash flies quickly from your grasp, and so you fall deeper into its. The mages show the making of simple machines to be borne by horse and ox, and soon the hills are burdened by a heavy crop. And here are the Rozier's soldiers, and with the sword, lance and bow they harry beasts and horrors before them, granting the tired farmer a respite well deserved.

Adventurers ride out from the castle on vicious steeds, bound for Dis and other places of the past. Seek out ancient knowledge and great artefacts, they are told, and bring these things to us. Of those sent, one party alone returns, their countenance haggard and their numbers diminished. The Weald is a jealous keeper. They bear tales of beasts that stalked them through the fetid night beneath the canopy, of wicked creatures that walked in the skins of men to better hunt them, of the jungle's thousand fevered dreams. They bear tales of Somneshet, the city of crawling vines. A proud place in days gone by, renowned for the skill of its alchemists and the beauty of its flowers, and among Heose's greatest vassals. The Rozier laid it low, as he did many others. The party scoured its outer edges for one single day and night, before being driven off by wailing shades that emerged at the height of the moon. Packs and bags are hastily spilled before the eager mages, and they dig greedily amongst the contents: tomes of ancient craft and lore, pouches of strange roots and seeds and powders, vials of glowing essence and the bright and shining eggs of some beast or bird, swords and rings and gems and rusting devices and more. Ah, but here is the expedition's Captain, and he holds the true treasure close and well-guarded. A plain grey stone sits alone in the palm of his hand, carved with a worn sigil. It bears the seal of Mammoun. Though seemingly of little worth, with the schooled perception of a mage the stone radiates pure anomes, wave upon wave of brilliant numina crashing against the mind. It is a waendeln - a Zirraf's tool, a gate by which one may treat with the outer realities. The mages whisper among themselves, for there is great power here, but greater danger. It is taken to the lower vaults and placed behind the wards.

Still the Cabal is unsatisfied, they must have more. Karkeron must realize the vision of the Rozier. From the soaring peaks of their citadel they sing out an elder song, their hands joined and their breath close. They call out to brothers and sisters long lost to them, and would make their family whole. There is a wall about Nale's magicians, and they do not answer. The Fair Witch replies with a laugh, and suddenly her presence is there, and it towers over these men and women, bearing down. Cloying, suffocating, a chemical taste upon the tongue and the tang of pain behind the eyes. She relents, her amusement plain as she departs, and glimpses of a glittering city by the sea trail in her wake. The mages soften their song, cowed by this vision. Some few notes eventually rise in greeting, but not so many as had been hoped. It will have to do.

-----

Olive trees cling to the hills as they rise from the sea, and herds of sure-footed goats hunt in search of a meal of tough grass. Rocky shore and narrow bay, filled with the white sails of countless ships. Here, perched in tiers upon the promontory, is Nethrast, the proudest port of the Phoadrim. The docks bustle from sunup to sundown, and the Lords-Merchant look down from their estates well contented that their fortunes grow fatter. But should they espy a ship bearing the banner of Ath, suddenly they sweat and quiver, thoughts racing. Is a magus come? What word does he bear? Just let him leave me be. The common folk are well aware that their betters traffic with the Collegemen, but they give it little thought. Money lets a man do whatever he should will, and it is known that in wont of work the rich have their diversions.

The Lord-Guardian has a secret. Ox-carts laden with sacks of stone, pallets of metal ingots, and bales of fine cloth wind their way through the narrow streets, up and up to the height of his keep. The delivery-men are bid to leave their materials in the courtyard, as Heuther's servants wrestle more inside. Shadowed figures watch from the windows, hoods hiding their faces. But a hood of Athican silk makes clear more than it obscures. A mission of Nivian mages has ensconced itself in the city's keep, and now the people wonder at their purpose. Heuther still walks the streets of Nethrast, but were his eyes not once the grey of the sea? Now they glint ice blue, and as the years pass time itself seems to ignore the Lord-Guardian, his face unlined and his posture unbowed. There are whispers of processions in the night, of strange lights in Heuther's keep, of a Blue Mystery.

Nadric, the captain of Heuther's fleet, has fled in the night with a score of ships and three-hundred families. None will speak of where and why he is gone, and the city is quiet. Weeks pass into months, and nothing seems to come of it, and so life continues as it has. The Phoadrim prosper, and there is work to be had, and the land and the sea alike are tamed and put to use. Word reaches them some years later that Nadric has made his own city on a far island, and he has joined the Haynish in league. All wonder if Heuther shall at last respond to the insults he has suffered from this faithless deserter.

The Fugue Seas are silent, save the cries of gulls and the creaking of traders' masts. No dire tidings are borne with the flotsam or the jetsam. Yet still the Nivian Mages seem nervous, as if they sense something terrible in the air. They come out only rarely from their College, to paint it in wards and enact ritual about it, or to embark on some unknown errand. There are rumblings beneath the earth, but the Athicans are unworried, as mages do such things from time to time. Predicator Osgidd and her council have tended well to the needs of the realm, and govern firmly and fairly. Even now in this time of sequestration a great series of roads has been decreed to serve the people, binding Ath more tightly to its country. Some few initiates aid the peasants in the effort, lending the power of their magics to ease burden and hasten this base labour. Even then, if one looks carefully, they might espy a mage stock-still atop his white tower, watching with trepidation as the waves roll in.

-----

A petty war ignites on the lake of the Baelnings as the brewing rivalry between Grist and Grenning comes to a head. Neither can bear the ambition of the other, and so countless men are drowned as their ships joust amidst the weeds. The Grenns have assembled a host of mercenaries, and marched themselves through the mire to the city of Sorm, declaring themselves the rightful masters of the Baeln. They demand Sorm join them in contest against the pretenders in Grist, or suffer the consequences of refusal. Sorm answers with a hail of arrows and a cry of defiance. An army of Gristings comes in answer to the Grenns, and the Sormish are filled with relief. They should not be, for Grist too demands their surrender, the city having trafficked with the treacherous Grenns. The siege sets in, the armies skirmishing with each other in the shallows and the mangroves, each sat miserably in the mud on opposite sides of the city. In the morning the ships of one side attempt to drive off those of the other, to enforce their own blockade. Some days the Grenns win out, and some days the Gristings. Ships flying flags from Habel and Imm sail past at their leisure to gouge their own price from the Sormish, though this one in silver. Supplies flow in to the city unopposed, and none dare interfere, afraid that a common cause should be forged with their enemy. Many soldiers desert, but this miserable farce continues, and it does not seem soon inclined to end.

To the north, above the mountains amidst the Nitheing Plain, a pair of black wings opens, and the sun is eclipsed as a terrible call carries on the air. Soon it is joined by human cries as the feast begins. The Kuron fly from the highlands onto the Nitheing plain, hastening from an evil fate.

His skin is sanguine yellow, his eyes coal-black, his features handsome and sharp. He sits atop a metal throne, and fresh blood drips from his grinning mouth. He bites into the flesh of a living man - who seems a child in his hands - and sighs with satisfaction over the burbling screams. He tears another apart, picking limbs from the body and stuffing them into his fanged maw. More are bound in shackles, begging and weeping, but none shall escape their turn. He is zirraf-of-exultations, and he has made this land his Dominion. Those who would avoid his hunger submit to him, and feed him their sons and daughters that they might be spared. He has a thousand heartless children, born of his insatiable lusts. They stand as mockeries of his heritage, and he calls them the zerrubim, and he has taught them the artful working of stone, the beauty of paint on canvas, and the making of sharp and vicious swords. They have carved him a beautiful palace from the very rock of the mountain, bedecked with fine hangings and the many arts of their hands. They name it Pardes, and have made of it a home.

The Kuron who would resist these horrific depredations band together under the Kunotara Nation and Numor Makar-Sahe, who the shamans name high chieftain. He is a ferocious warrior, and he leads his dog soldiers against the zerrubs, and falls upon them with spear and axe as they head for Pardes, bringing their human cattle in train along the paths of the mountains. In this way he swells his own ranks, starves the wicked zirraf of sustenance, and reduces the ranks of the foe. The Kunotara Nation is unbroken, and they will not submit unless all means should be taken from them - and perhaps not even then.

------  
 
Strange horns sound in the valleys, strange, for they are too familiar. Centaur horns. The Hadan clan has come, bearing Tristam's banner. With battle-cries on their lips the Centaurs charge from the forest's edge and fall upon the Rozierey. Villages are burned to ash, herds driven off, the crop left to rot in the fields. The Hadan ride down hapless farmers, spearing them with the lance or filling their backs with arrows. The Cabal is filled with fury; has Rhomes deceived them with his promises of friendship and forgiveness?

The full force of Karkerian arms marches out from the iron gates of Karkeron, their swords well-oiled and their spears set upon their shoulders, ready to give response. But the centaurs refuse any battle, instead harrying and harassing the Cabal's army, whittling it slowly away. They run from each engagement, letting fly parting shots. The phalanx of Rozierey is ordered to retreat. The soldiers are filled with shame as the people cry out for protection, and they can do nothing but file silently past. The phalanx encamps before the fortress, and lights of the brilliant white play over the hills from the battlements, illuminating the night. The Hadan shy away from these peering beams, and content themselves with ravishment.

The Cabal sends forth another answer. Ancient Goearn, Lord of the Rennish Giants, strides forth from the depths of Karkeron. His yellow eyes are clouded, his beard trails along the ground, and his grey skin is thick and scaly. He stands twenty-feet at the shoulder, and is a fearsome sight. A team of a dozen men fastens him into a great mail hauberk, and straps his shield onto his arm. And here they bring forth his mount, Black Orkris, sire of the Karkerian steeds. Reared by the hand of the Sorcerer himself, his is the greatest lineage. Black Orkris stamps upon the stones, cracking them, as Goearn takes to the saddle. The horse's breath is hot as he snorts, and the air shimmies before him - and then he runs. His hooves boom as thunder upon the ground, striking fire as rider and steed descend from the heights onto the farmer's plain. The Hadan are caught unawares, and they make to flee. But they are too slow, and Goearn rides them down, crushing them with his hammer. Tristam sounds the horn, and the Centaurs marshal to face the threat. They circle about Goearn and Black Orkris, peppering them with arrows and with javelins. Goearn and his mount remain unmoved. There must be some spell upon them, for the missiles fall from mail coat and horse hide alike. Goearn roars and lashes out again with his maul, and Centaurs are strewn about the field like broken toys. Tristam rides forward, his father's lance held before him he charges the giant. And so Tristam flung his lance, and its provenance was great enough that it flew unhindered through the Cabal's spell, and struck Goearn in his left eye. But as the giant cried out, Black Orkris struck with the blow of his hoof, and proud Tristam was pulped to jelly upon the ground. The Hadan reeled to see their Lord cast down, and they fled into the Weald.

Of half a thousand Centaurs, a bare two-hundred made their return to Nai Remmis, many having perished beneath Goearn's maul or in the depths of the Weald. There they were met with the righteous fury of their King, who struck the heads from the remaining captains of the Hadan, and sent them in a sack to Karkeron. From the rest he stripped lands and homes, and sent them to the furthest reach of his realm beyond the mountain pass, that they might settle there and yet do some small good for the country they betrayed.

-----

The Empress has been seen atop the spires of the Shuddering Palace, her gaze fixed north. There a white apton alights, and bows before her. It is said that aptons are akin to dragons in some way, though they appear as simple birds of prey. Nonetheless, the Sensileans have never heard that such a creature could be broken to command. But of course their Empress does, as she does many great things, and the people bask in her glory. The raptor stays for a time, before flying into the north once more. The Empress has proclaimed that her ships must go thence, bringing back word of what they might find, and delivering her own. The ships of Sensinsal are to journey far from home, and her acolytes shall go with them. The coasts are barren, and none come out to greet them when they make anchor. A fishing ship is met, and the fisher claims to hail from a port the crews have never heard of. He agrees to take them there, to Eades.

The city is small, but well-ordered and prosperous. The people call themselves Teschai. They cut timber, salt fish, and brew a strong and sweet liquer. They say they are colonists, that they hail from a grand empire to the north, one that fights a bitter war against barbarous men who ride on the backs of feathered serpents. They are curious to hear of another empire, and say that they should be eager to trade for the fine things the Sensileans have shown them. Their Lord notes that this far south Eades owes no fealty to the Empire of the Teschai, but to the Kingdom of the Bractemenn, who have their own war to fight. The Teschai of Eades seem unconcerned, as if this is the way of the world, and they send their sons away to fight in the name of this King they have never met. They are surprised to hear that the Iridescent Empire has no foe of its own that it must vanquish.

The acolytes ask after the Bractemenn's war, for they have been instructed in this regard. A God walks upon the earth, they are told, and its power must be great if it should contest the supremacy of the King, who holds no less then nine Furies in his thrall. Its name is Mahol, and it binds countless men to its purpose, destroying cities with the wave of its hand if they refuse to enjoin themselves to its Inevitable Union. The acolytes think the Teschai credulous, but relay the news to their Empress regardless, as they have been told. She is silent for long moments, a tension permeating the link. "I shall see this for myself." she says.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Update Two: Rattle and Rigor

Five Years



- the priest, Ovin: "Ah. Difficult childhood." -

Fever burns amidst the muck and the mire. The armies of Grist and Grenning languish in their encampments, the men wracked with spasm and thirst. Smoke rises fitfully from the smoldering ashes of the city, and the gates stand open. The quiet unnerves as the two parties meet upon the square. A handful of dirty and hollow-eyed survivors the audience, this tableau silently taken in by the empty and crow-pecked gaze of a man hanged on the branch of a gnarled tree. Here are the worthies of two foes come to make a peace, their finery mud-spattered, the desolation that was their design about them. Sorm is dead, they declare, and none might now have that city as they had desired. The lines are drawn upon the map and the seals of hot wax gingerly affixed under a downcast sky. The men depart gladly for their homes, leaving waste and ruin behind them.

From this destruction a great profit was made by the cities of Habel and Imm, who in concert defied the will of Grist and Grenning both. Sorm rots in a mouldy grave, and this lesson has not been lost. Signora  Violanta of Imm is at last to be wed, and her bridegroom is none other than Signore Artyn of Habel. With this union the fates of these two cities shall be enjoined, and the security of their now-shared future ensured. But tension floats as a film of oil on the Lake of Baeln, and it would take only the smallest spark to ignite new conflagration.

-----

The men of Nethrast grow bolder, and it is more than their wealth that has made them so. The city spreads along cliff and shore, and its towers grow ever taller. The Nivians stride openly about, now, and they have donned hoods of finest blue. Are they Heuther's guests, or his minders? Great stairs black and deep have been cut beneath the city's Keep, and the Lord-Guardian's men keep a watch upon them night and day. None may descend into the depths without his blessing.

Ageless Heuther extends the dominion of his port far from the cry of the gull and the roar of the wave. He has summoned all his soldiers to him and made encampment amidst the rolling hills, demanding the people come before him and make their submission. He has somehow bent a Salamander to his purpose, and chains it before his tents in threat as the grass withers around it. The humble shepherd villages of that land are cowed, and they send their tributes to him. Yet Heuther's ambition is incomplete, for some few of his would-be subjects bear threads of kinship to the Sakynes of the mountains, and they appeal to their cousins for protection.

Taeqos, King of Sakyntes, has donned his bronzen armour and has sounded his horn in answer. He declares that the aegis of his shield shall be before any man who seeks his protection from the Phoadrim. His raucous host has descended from the hills, and its night-fires lie in fullest view of Heuther's tent, twinkling in the darkness. The Lord-Guardian fumes and calls for the Nivians, but he gives no answer to Taeqos' challenge. Not yet.

-----

A keening wail carries across the plain as fires race through dry and brittle grasses towards the wooded heights. A fury tumbles slowly through the clouds - pierced in many places - as sharp and seething spiders clamber upon it and cut into its flesh with violent appetite. They are relics of the elder night crafted from the bones of fallen Khernar, and they are given shape by the will of his son, Mahol. A rictus grin of joy affixes itself upon the face of the Tsarpriest as he floats above the battlefield, threads of inky blackness wending from his fingers to collar about these fragments, these Revenants of Dead Khernar. The lines of the Bractemenn waver and fray to the song of the Fury's moans. Their fear betrays them - they fly from the plain. Vernax, King of the Field, is crossed upon two spears and borne before the host of the red-skinned Mahlen as gruesome banner. They sing songs of ruin as they march upon the mountain fastnesses.

The castle-city of Lugar is pressed from every side. Three of the High King's furies have been torn out from the sky, and the tall forests are rent to ash and stump. But the Bractemenn stand defiant on the ramparts, and still they beat their swords upon their shields even as the engines of the besiegers assail the walls with flying rocks. The Mahlen are clever, and they well know their catapults could not hope to crack open mighty Lugar; this is merely theatre, the dressing of the siege. The defenders are oblivious as a tunnel is sunk through earth and rock beneath the castle mound, as red skin sweats in fitful lamplight. Here is the true thrust of the attack. The tunnel is flooded with an inky ooze under the Tsarpriest's watchful eye, and now he casts a darting spark as the entrance is sealed with mud and rock. There is light and heat, and terrible noise quickly brought to silence. The Mahlen cower upon the ground, but when at last they look up they see that the bastions of mighty Lugar are torn asunder, and the Bractemenn lie dazed or dying. With a joyous roar the eager host rushes forwards through drifting dust, and the screams begin as the city is put to the sack.

The Mahlen delight in their victory, but the Tsarpriest sets them to order with whips of flame upon their backs, and with the name of the Inevitable Father whispered in their ears. A Kingdom yet stands, and it must be brought low. The Mahlen sharpen their swords and spears anew, and the Bractemenn are stripped of their pride and bound in chains. They weep to see the devastation that has befallen their land, and they call out curses upon the High King and all his absent servants. Silent and stumbling columns of slaves wend their way across the burnt-out plain, bound for the black-sheathed glory that is Avrazh, the Obsidian City, the Seat of the Presence. There they shall be made to give the work of their hands to the majesty of its monuments and to the strength of its walls and towers until Mahol should deem it fit that their lives should leave them.  

The Revenants chitter amongst themselves as they scamper many-legged afore the Mahlen, as they leap from tree to tree. The Tsarpriest has set them to espy the enemy, and to bring him any word of the Bractemenn and their furies. The skies are empty, and no vengeful host boils forth. Empty homes and empty fields greet the Mahlen as they march on by. The trees grow taller and their stands close together as the route wears on, until seemingly of a sudden they tower overhead. A figure stands alone upon the road in the shadows of these ancient and watchful giants, and a strange glamour is about him. Even Tsarpriest Ovin's keen sight cannot fully pierce the veil about the black-cloaked man, but he brushes aside any petty hesitation. His confidence rides high upon the lingering waves of victory. The Revenants seem to hesitate as the Tsarpriest strides forward, his sumptuous robes never deigning to touch hem to ground. "And what are you, highwayman? Common thief, wayfarer, messenger? Have you come in the name of your King? We've killed three already, you know. I'm surprised you have any left!" he calls out. The man is still and silent for a long moment, and then he speaks.

"Condescend as you like, supplicant. You tread upon the King's road, and you shall come no farther. Depart, and do not return. Do this and I swear that no vengeance shall hound itself upon your trail, and your sins shall be forgotten." His voice is low and rasping, and it's gravelly timbre carries in the quiet wood. The Tsarpriest laughs as he responds. "And how shall you stop me, highwayman? I have five-thousand at my beck and call. By my count you have precisely... ah, yes. None." the Tsarpriest says, his tone amused. His laughter carries back among the Mahlen, and they take it up roughly. Even the inscrutable Revenants chitter with something approximating humour. The Tsarpriest spreads his hands in mock apology and grins. "So be it." the highwayman says, tired and resigned. He casts off his cloak of black, and he casts off his glamour.

A rack of great and soaring antlers juts out from his back, and their tangled lengths are dark and wet. Crimson droplets patter upon the hard-packed earth. A tall green helm sits upon his brow, and about it a crown of golden thorns. He is girded in a coat of lacquered wooden plate, and he wears boots of fine black sable. His eyes shine dimly with an ancient and foreboding light. His countenance is great and terrible to behold, and for once the Tsarpriest is rendered mute, no clever quip upon his tongue. "I stand revealed, supplicant. I am the Bloody Stag, and you trespass upon my realm. You have brought misery and sorrow in your wake, and I am filled with a righteous anger. Do not think that I mistake your Master or his purpose, for both are known to me. This wood is inviolate, and inviolate it shall remain." He steps forward.

The Tsarpriest snarls, and black threads sprout from his fingers to twine about his Revenants. Near faster than the eye can see they shudder towards the Bloody Stag, their passage stilted and hardly glimpsed. Their talons are upon their prey, and they scream and wail as they tear and rend, blood wicking from a hundred spines. But the air grows still, and a single moment stretches to eternity. Something breaks, then. Something far away and long ago. The air is still. The Revenants are still. And then they are dust, and float gently to the ground. He steps forward a second time. "I am Nír, and once beneath a distant star I was so honoured to stand in company with Cherem Chryses - Master of the Brilliant Strand! - as he defied God Herself. I have felt the chill of the long night deep within my soul, when I was racked in the oubliette of Apollyon-Kotet. I did not beg, and I did not kneel. Did you think that these mouldy bones would be my undoing?" The Tsarpriest howls in rage as he lashes the Bloody Stag with cracking whips of white-hot magefire. Nír takes another step, his beautiful wooden coat forgotten in singed and neatly parted pieces upon the ground behind him. The Mahlen cry out in horror as their living flesh rots and peels before their eyes. Ovin falls to his knees as his mind is seized in horror. He writhes and begs his master for deliverance. A silver chain appears at his navel as the Bloody Stag looks on. "Flee then, supplicant, and tell your master that I shall not allow his interference in my design." he says. The chain pulls, and the Tsarpriest is ripped away.  

-----

The world passes by gently and beautifully below, but she is inured to the sight. She travels unnoticed, a cloud scudding north across the sky amongst its fellows. She looks upon a new city as it rises in her name beside a sweetwater sea, her people swarming about it; but this is not her purpose, and she moves on. Behind gilded mask the Empress of Sensinsal purses her lips in concentration. There is a presence at the edge of her awareness, pressing in upon her thoughts.  It grows stronger, more vibrant and visible in her mind's eye. There is no deception here, no attempt to hide; she need not employ even the most minor of dowsings. And so she comes to a nameless valley far and away, parted from the warmth of her palace and her city for the first time in more then a century. The valley is studded with short pines and ragged breaks of stone, and the trickle of mountain waters can be heard all about. Here is the source of the presence, and it nearly overwhelms. But she sees nothing, she hears nothing. She whispers cants beneath her breath as she sits perched above, struggling to reveal what she seeks to find. Her vision is occluded by darkness, and a pillar of night rises up from the valley floor to strike her. The Empress twists aside, dropping nimbly from her cloud. Her descent slows, and she comes to rest on rough brown grass, and a tall being possessed of fired skin and regal bearing stands before her. He smiles lightly, seeming almost distracted. "So. You are Mahol. Do we enact a play here in this valley? It seems rather tired and cliched." she says, adjusting her mask ever so slightly.

He looks down at his body, feigning shock. "Ah. Blessed relief. I am yet unpierced by solar lances." he says. She walks about him, taking his measure. "You are nearly a zirraf, but not quite. What are you?" she replies. He shrugs, and lazily raises a hand, his fingers flashing. The Empress darts backwards, but she is caged in white lines of arcane geometry, and finds she has not moved at all. "As you say." he says. The Empress tilts her head, and she steps upon her shadow and out from behind a lonely pine, freed from momentary prison. Mahol blinks, and the lines fray and dissolve. "I have come far to see you, nearly-a-zirraf. But I find myself disappointed." she says as she splays her hands, spears of red witchfyr darting towards Mahol. He raises a shield of liquid silver, and the witchfyr hisses into smoke at the impact. "You are talented for a witch, and will make a fine servant. However, I am busy." he says, looking off into the distance, idly taking up jagged boulders in invisible hands and hurling them at his visitor. She walks calmly between them, never where they fall. "I am no servant, but an Empress!" she replies, men of dust and darkness rising from the dirt with sharpened talons to assail him at her command. He fends them off-one handed, still looking to the west. She pauses. "Are we to be foes then, Mahol?" she asks. Mahol sighs. "I find your vanities unsubtle and offensive, Breah Corine, but I cannot say. It may not be necessary. Now, if your curiosity is sated, would you leave? As I said, I'm busy." The two regard each other for a moment more, witch-empress and deity-unrealized. She called a cloud down from the sky, then, and rode off into the south.

-----

Word has come to Amasque that the Zirraf of Pardes has broken the Kunotara Nation, that but short days ago Numor Maker-Sahe fell, that heart was plucked from chest and eaten on the field. His dog soldiers have fled, and the Dominion of Exultation spreads upon the plain. The Curia cares not, for they are yet incensed by the effrontery of Lother of Cruscus, that he would dare raise hand against a city of the Phoadrim. Despite the threat of Nitheing raids, the Polemarch Oban is dispatched with ten ships and a thousand men-at-arms to humble this so-called prince. The army is marshaled upriver at the fort of Har Sabran, its new docks teeming with a sweating and cursing mass of humanity, its tall grey tower looming over them. The great Amasquan galleys depart, men heaving at the oars. The last bend is rounded, and the vine-laden walls of Cruscus come into view. The alarum is raised, and a bell clangs in the city as men hurry onto the rain-slick ramparts. The Polemarch's ship races ahead of the others - the rhythm of its drums beating faster and faster - the Baelnings on the wall laugh, knowing the ship will tear itself apart on the river chain, having seen it done before; but wait, is the chain not raised? Surround oneself with dishonest men as Lother did, and do not be surprised when a pouch of silver buys more than you would care to part with. A handful of arrows fall fitfully on Oban's galley as it makes its berth, but the mail-clad Phoadrim are not deterred, and they leap from their vessel swords to hand.  

Lother's men offer little resistance. They fight only halfheartedly now that the advantage of wall and chain is lost to them. Oban stands at the fore hacking at the foe with axe and sword - a true brute of a man, tall and broad - and a fearsome sight in his coppered mail. Here is Lother's manse, and the guardsmen throw down their swords and flee. The Phoadrim batter down the door, and charge inside shouting their battlecries. Lother sits upon his throne, and he screams his rage - spittle flying from his lips - and commands the men about him to do their duty. They simply back away. An unmanful squeak escapes the Prince as Oban approaches, and he tries to bargain, and he weeps and begs. Oban reaches out with a quickness belied by his size and crushes Lother's throat in his hand, throwing his limp body aside. He sits down upon the vacant throne, wiggling about to find comfortable position. "We must find a new Prince, then. This one is broken." he says.

Rugh professes it's friendship and its gratitude alike to Amasque, the city's Prince only too pleased to see Lother dead and the Cruscans dispensed with. The merchant-lords of Amasque grow richer than before, but they do not rest easily. The encircling guard of the Heruan Walls is made complete just barely in time, and now daily the Nitheings are spotted from the heights. They settle into the land they have taken and they name it Nime. The writ of Amasque runs thin now in those places, and the vassal towns submit one by one to the Nitheings rather than endure continued depredation.

There are rumours of a confrontation in the night, of a rift amongst the city's witches. Some whisper that the Cabal of the Daladrim has murdered one of their own in sacrifice to a dark god. No! Lother's pet witch came seeking vengeance against the Curia, but he was dispatched by a bolt of fyr in the street. There was a coup, and a new witch now rules the Daladrim. Others say it failed, and the instigator was turned into a bat - or actually a rat! - and made to flee the city. Most outlandishly of all it has been heard that indeed it was the mild-mannered apothecary Abibaal whose plot was undone, and that he has gone north - yes, in the form of a rat (bat!) - seeking the protection of the Sensilean Empress, that she has taken him as her lover. Or perhaps as a meal.

-----  

Stacks rise over the fortress of Karkeron belching dark smoke to mingle with the jungle fog, and sudden booms and cracks are heard ringing in the nearby hills. The Rozierey seek to recover the technique and craft of elder days, and they pore over the detritus the remains, left forgotten long ago by ancient engineers. They sink deep mineshafts through the stone, and they uncover rare black earth to fire their manically shuddering machines.

The Weald is deep and trackless, and the Rozierey watch it warily. The isolation of Karkeron wears upon the mind, and each man and woman has felt the brush of paranoia. The Cabal still sends their adventurers, and still most do not return. The Weald is vast and wide, and there is little and less that might now easily be found. But the reports that do return to the country of the Rozierey are troubling. The Wealdings are moving in great numbers on the other side of the Alph. They seem afraid, and the stench of fear wafts amidst the trees. Perhaps Rhomes has scented it as well, for his centaurs too have been seen abroad. A king's messenger arrives, and he bears a warning. Rhomes has dreamt of a darkness looming in the east, and it comes. A mage dismisses the rider curtly, but she cannot suppress a cold shiver down her spine. The Cabal gathers for a ritual of scrying, and they lay a vial of clear water before them. The Alph shall anchor their sight, so that they should not lose their way. But all about is fog, and they cannot see past the shore. They travel down and down the course of the water, but still it is the same. At last they reach the river's mouth... and here a vision out of ages past. It is said that of the delta the Rozier made a bay, scouring away the islands that sat upon the silt. But here is the fabled Isle of Dusk, and perched upon it is a glowing city, undrowned. It is Ker Isz, the Dreamer's City. In all the world only Golden Dis was more beautiful or divine. Ensorcelled walls and a citadel of shining green rise to meet the sky, and they reflect and magnify the rays of the sun into that cursed blinding fog, boiling it into nothingness. The scriers can approach no further this otherworldly vision, for some strange force bars the way. In exhaustion the Cabal relents. They must rest from their exertion and contemplate this mystery.

The centaurs are yet ill-trusted despite the gestures of their King. The Hadan clan has made relation sour on the tongue, and it may be too late to wash away bitter taste. The Cabal has decreed that a route must be made around the Gap of Rem, that Karkeron should no longer find itself isolated from the wider world. Trackers and climbers are tasked to find a way through the mountains to the west, and the wind and falling snow shall not stop them. Many freeze to death on the ice-lashed alpine slopes, and others fall screaming into deep crevasses, and more simply disappear. They are loath to disappoint their masters, but they must report. There is no pass. The Cabal will not be denied. If they cannot go over or around, they shall go through. A route is made into the hills until it can be made no farther. They lash their new engines to spinning drills and they set metal teeth to chew through rock and stone. They bury explosive powders in the earth and they blast it aside. The magi join their power each to the other, and a beam of white magefire sears a jagged and glowing hole through the mountainside. The men cough and sweat in the darkness, swinging pick and axe, and here at last is a pinprick of sun's light, and then they are through. Greenery tumbles away down the mountainside, and there a river running. The way to the Baeln is clear.

-----

The Nivians have come, and Heuther sets his spears in line. He refuses the words of his advisers. There will be no negotiation with these odious barbarians. The Sakynes whoop and holler, and make to gather opposite. Taeqos strides before them, his bronzen armour flashing in the sun. Heuther makes no allowance for his enemy, and he commands the Nivians to loose. Bolts of magefire strike in the midst of the Sakynes and men are thrown limbless and tumbling all about. They sound their horns and break into their charge, hurling spears as they run. Despite the magic of the Nivians the Phoadrim line backs a pace or two, the levymen quivering. They are not trained soldiers. Now comes the familiar clash of arms as the Sakynes crash into the line. Men bleed and scream and die.

Heuther sets loose his salamander, and it waddles forward awkwardly breathing out gouts of blue smoke, men dropping all about it clutching at their throats and bleeding from their eyes. The magus Domovoi makes contest with Hriam of the Sakynes, Taeqos' high Soothsayer. The man is old and his beard is grey and long, but his eyes radiate raw power. The two stand yards apart, their gazes locked together. The melee swirls about them and none dare interfere. Both know that he who flinches first shall perish on the field.

Taeqos cuts down all who stand before him, his sword rising and falling in a blur. He fights like a madman, and draws near the fearsome salamander. He runs and leaps a great and mighty leap and lands upon its back above the deadly cloud. The beast hisses and tries to shake him off, but his footing is sure as he wraps his arms about its throat. Surely it is impossible, but it is not. The salamander struggles frantically, but Taeqos merely tightens his grip, his muscles bulging. Finally it collapses to the ground - strangled dead - with a loud and fleshy thud as both sides look on in shock. The Sakynes cheer, and tear with new vigour into the Phoadrim. The levymen start to drop their spears and flee. Heuther is silent as he watches his plan die on the field before him. Without a word he wades into the fray, his veins distended and throbbing blue. A dread malevolence emanates out from him as he makes for Taeqos. His bare fists split Sakyne helms and pulp proud warriors into the dirt. They are upon each other, and Taeqos catches the first blow on his shield, but the second slips by and staves in his breastplate. He wheezes and shakes himself off. His sword dances in front of him, and Heuther is forced back, taking cuts upon his arms. Taeqos steps forward, anger in his eyes. He lashes out with a kick, and Heuther is tripped flat upon his back. The Phoadrim moan as the sword descends. But look, there is a frost upon the grass, and Taeqos' breath steams in the air. He is thrown back then by some unseen force, cartwheeling in the air. He lands and does not stir. His companions take him up beneath his arms as Heuther rises unsteadily to his feet. Each side falls apart from the other as if by mutual consent, leaving bodies as a carpet on the grass between them. The Sakynes fly for the hills, but the Phoadrim know they have won no victory today. A terrible grudge is made, and many more will perish under its curse.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Update Three: Long Old Bones

Twenty Years

- the palace, Shuddering: "Then did I wake and see and hear the old tyrants circle..." -

And now a tale of the greatest war, the most gruesomely fought and most hateful to pass since the Fall of Nod.

The Lady God Herself was besieged, the strength of Midan come, the star Heaven circled all about. She looked out from Pandemonium and was sickened with regret to see Her children marshaled there in line. Every Host yet loyal to Heaven was gathered before the walls. Here were the Sanguine led by ancient Mepht, who alone had stood defiant between the killer Death and the Lady God. He was tall and long and bedecked in glistening red, and of all zirrafs he was the bravest. Here were the Ashen, quiet, bare and barely there: garbed only in mist and whispers, cradling black staves of forgetting. They had named neither lord nor captain, and so that day they chose Dathne from among themselves to speak in council. A shy smile was on her lips and a wreath of secrets lay tangled in her hair. And here were the Golden, beautiful and proud. Their mistress Heosë was wounded gravely by betrayal, but still she had combed out her shining locks to enmantle herself in light, and she held the silver blade Heartdamn clenched tightly in her fist. Last came the Host of Bones: rattling, rasping and grey. Grimm Deathson was their Herald, who had refused the title King. He had forsworn his father's folly and made of himself a servant to God's will. He turned up the collar of his black cloak and bided patiently the coming of battle. These few only answered Heaven's call to arms.

The Lady God's vassals had either defied her or were absent from the field. The Lords of Frigid Kothon came not with their strange machines and their arts of seeming. Neither could be spied the fire-spouting Dreadnoughts of Angalas, which leave trails of flame and smoke on the void as they leap across it. The graceful dancers of Second Pelean send but a single voiceless maiden as witness; naked and near featureless, all in alabaster. There are too few of them left, and the Lady God forgives and understands even at this late and desperate hour. All had grown afraid of the bright glory of Midan, which seemed then to eclipse even that of Heaven.

Here then was the enemy. The Lord Cherem Chryses, First of Midan, Master of the Brilliant Strand. Long had the Lady God favoured Cherem, for his his art and ingenuity were unsurpassed, and indeed remain so to this day. His home had been a quiet place once, but Cherem Chryses had raised it up until it had no equal under any star. An orb of dazzling blue and green; of light. Its people were strong and beautiful and hale, and always in pursuit of a deeper understanding, seeking out the mysteries of Creation. Once he had been honoured guest at the Court in Pandemonium, and there he fell in love with the zirraf Heosë, and after many years took her as his wife. Both had known happiness and contentment in each other's arms for a time. But Cherem could not long abide any idle, and so returned to Midan. From Pandemonium, from Her library, he had stolen a secret knowledge forbidden to men. Though his intent was not then ill, he could not resist temptation, and so he peered to the very bottom of all things. What he saw there left him pale and shaking and filled with terror, but slowly his terror became a towering rage, and in his fury he denounced Heaven and its Hosts before the Midani, and he told them of his plan, his terrible purpose: to put an end to God Herself.

And so the Midani had joyously and with clamour taken up their weapons and their tools. And so now sat Cherem Chryses atop the Leviathan Odo - reared from tiny pup to colossal beast - looking down on Heaven, his attention rapt to the Final Device. All about him were his retainers, who zipped to and fro in their racing and arcing Glims. The Knights of the Strand circled close, sure to guard their Master from any threat. His captain Elet bore the Infernal Engine in her Glim, ready to rip the foe apart from time and space. His captain Nír clasped the Dimmerwald tightly to his breast, that he should there be made invincible between his Master and any shot or art. The Midani were made ready for the attack. The Young Queen Zel below and beneath with her Thousand-Break Armada, guns polished and gleaming white. From each side came the shadow ships of Heln, of the Midan-Moons. They flickered in and out, here and then there. Above it all Cherem Chryses looked down, and even faced with the sight of the gathered zirrafim he judged that he was prepared. He gave the signal.

The Knights of the Strand sped forward in their Glims. They sneaked their way between the gathered zirraf Hosts, spinning traps of deadly light. The Lord Mepht called out in booming voice to hold the line, as he was ever wise to any deceit, but many impetuous zirrafim gave chase on the wing - so confident in their ability and art. But even the fastest zirraf was far too slow, and they were each of them caught up in light-tangles, popping out of existence in silent puffs of drifting dust. The Thousand-Break Armada strove upwards in a wedge, guns crackling and spewing heat, a cloud of superheated gas expanding outwards in thunder from them as the zirrafs of the Sanguine Host came against them with their lances and found themselves unmade in fire. Helning shadows stabbed and bit at every side, sowing chaos and confusion amidst Heaven's defenders. The Lady God looked out on Her dying children and wept, holding tight the hand of the young maiden of Pelean, either unwilling or unable to grant any aid or succor.

A shout went up from the zirrafim as Heosë came forward, Heartdamn held aloft. Glims bobbed and circled around her. She struck out with her blade and cleaved a Glim in twain, its Knight tumbling headless into the void. She struck again, and again. Even the speeding Glims could not escape Heartdamn's reach, and it mattered not where they were, for its edge would always find them. Emboldened by their mistress the Golden charged forward en masse, and drove away the Glims with a great volley of solar lances so bright that for a moment Heaven's own light was gloomy and dim. Grimm Deathson had hid himself beneath that flare, his reapers fluttering about him, and now he was close upon the Helnings. He reached forward almost gently, pools of inky blackness dribbling out from his open eyes and ears and mouth. The blackness spread and spread, and it seemed to scream. A blackness so deep that the Helnings could no longer find any shadow in which to hide, and seized by fear they were carved apart with atom-scythes. A lull threatened to arise then in the battle, both sides wary of what strange weapons their enemy might unleash. But the Young Queen Zel was not deterred, trusting in her own strength. With fury and abandon the Thousand-Break Armada tore again into the Sanguine Host, wreaking horror on those zirrafs. The Young Queen was brash and bold, and seeing the carnage she made about her she reveled in the fullness of her power unleashed. She sat there in Repose and hummed a tune she had known in her childhood, her fingers dancing in the air. She did not notice the cold as it grew about her, as loud silence descended. "Too confident, too courageous," the zirraf Neret said then in the Queen's ear. She laid her black staff of forgetting on Young Zel's head and made her blind and deaf and dumb. As the Ashen descended upon that fleet the crash and crackle ceased, guns no longer pouring heat. And so the fearsome Thousand-Break Armada was ushered to a peaceful oblivion.

A frown creased itself on the face of the Master of the Brilliant Strand. This was not according to his design. And so he sent Elet forward with his Knights to protect her, and he bade her unwind the Infernal Engine upon the zirrafim. A spray of colour and a slow skewing of perception, and then the bite. Rank on rank of zirrafim vanished sudden from the sphere formation they had made to gird Pandemonium. Again the bite, and more were gone. Brave zirrafim charging, but they too were bitten. The zirraf Mepht came forward. Unable to restrain himself, his form sparked and shimmered with raw energy. Elet bit him right then with her Infernal Engine, and for a moment he wavered in the void. But doughty Mepht would not be undone so easily, and he hoisted his lance above his shoulder. Elet bit at him again. And again. Mepht's glistening armour fell off him and away, his skin peeled back and his bones began to drip. His inner fire lay bare to the hungry void, but still he sighted his throw. And then he loosed. Never was there a truer shot, and his lance passed clean through Elet's Glim, and clean through the Infernal Engine, and as brave Mepht dissolved into the aether his lance flew a true course towards Cherem Chryses and the Final Device. But even Mepht's lance could not defeat the Dimmerwald, and Nír grinned wide and full as he took the blow on that famous shield.

Though the battle raged anew around him, Cherem Chryses bent patiently at his work. All was made ready at last. The Leviathan Odo lashed out with its tail and its claws, and it sent zirrafs reeling. Nír struggled with the zirraf Inan-Ishtar, and her stout blows rained down upon the Dimmerwald one after the other, allowing him no respite to seek his Master's side. Knight fought tooth and nail against zirraf, and chaos bloomed swirling in the void. But all was ready.

Cherem Chryses took his Final Device in hand, and as he bore it up he sought one last glimpse of his love Heosë, and he met her eye across the field. She cried out, seeing in his eye what he would do, and she dove before him. The Brilliant Strand would not be denied. The Final Device groaned, and for a moment time was still and frozen. The Lady God watched unblinking as her doom approached. She wondered then if she should avert it. No. It was too late for that. She whispered a single word to the young maiden at her side, and was gone. Every zirraf felt it as a stab to the breast, but Heosë most of all. She shrieked a wordless shriek as Heartdamn cut through Cherem Chryses, as the light went out from his smiling eyes.

And so the Lady God passed from creation, and it was made a meaner, darker, and baser place.

---

Fine scents waft languidly through the halls of the Imperial Soen, spicy or sweet or in between. Every wall is draped in tapestry and hanging, curtains at every door. Sound carries slowly on the air, stifled by cloth. Here are witches of every kind and description, clad in heaps of sultry Sensilean silk, in gold and silver and pearls. Looking close, just close enough, the mysteries of deference and haughty superiority reveal themselves. Smell perfume on the air, feel the cut and layer of fabric, see how bright the diamond shines. Subtleties all, but deadly necessary in this place; the only place of its like in all the world. The Empress has tugged and pulled on the strings of her following, upon the witches and the acolytes, on the priests and magistrates and officers, and all have moved to her rhythm and all have woven her design.

The Soen, the witch-school, descended in its dignity and its grace from the old and ancient forebears of that name. The Empress half-remembers these long ago things as she walks the dancing halls - all giving way before her - wisps of colour and thread in her mind's eye. She smiles behind her mask as she lays a hand on her swelling belly, as she whispers in the ear of Abibaal who walks beside her, head bowed low.

Imperial Consort, a fine title. With it come all the satisfactions a man could ever desire. Fine indeed for a gutter-witch from Amasque. Far removed from a childhood of deprivation on the stinking sun-baked fisher's docks of that southern port. Further from the humiliation of his defeat. Sourness curdles in his gut when he thinks of the old hag, how she laughed at him and bound him and cursed him. He vowed to destroy her, vowed to go back some day and make them all crawl to him like worms. That's why he was here, of course. Why he'd come north with his essence unceremoniously stuffed into the body of a bat; it was why he'd alighted gently on that window-sill, singing an old glammer's song in a bat's voice.

She approached softly on padding feet, her body bare to him save for her face. "Little bat; little witch. Your song stirs memory, heart and blood. How did you come to know it?" the Empress asked as she opened her glass windows wide, the breeze twining past curtain and candle-flame. He chirped and chittered, and the Empress tipped up her mask and showed him her slyly smiling lips, the sensuous dart of her tongue. She ran her fingertips through his fur and beneath his jaw, numina coursing into him. "Now take back form and face, and learn all that I have to offer you." she whispered, gesturing towards the inner chamber. Abibaal rose to follow her on quivering legs, feeling somehow a stranger in his own body.

He feels the far-away powers of the north now, for she has taught him this among other things. Feels them in his mind like a hot pin digging deep in his brain. He aches for home. So too does he ache to stay. The pleasures of Sensinsal, the embrace of the Empress. He does not want to go north, doesn't want to know the troubles and powers of that place. But this is why he knows he must go, if ever he is to reach that lofty greatness to which he aspires. Very nearly. So close. A hair's breadth. This is the fineness of his decision. This the barest triumph of will. He leaves secretly in the night, stepping from a balcony and on to a swirling cloud. The Empress watches, of course. Nothing passes in Sensinsal without her knowledge or direction.

-------

An emissary came to Avrazh, dressed all in sable and silver. He saw that city's majesty - saw it plain in its jutting obelisks and its grim palaces, in the savage confidence of the red-skinned Mahlen, in the utter subjection of their slaves. But it was as if he had seen it all before, and he gave no second glance to wonder or terror. With him came strange warriors on feathered serpents known as quels, and other men alike to him on fine white horses. The people of the Obsidian City gathered about him as his company made way, some curious, others sneering or staring darkly - but they raised no hand in anger, and they made no cry of alarm, for they knew that none could come so near the Presence without leave. The procession made its stately way to the Grinding Hall, where the ground grows jagged with upthrust rocks. A dark archway yawned there, and the echoing sound of rattling chains carried to the ear. The Tsarpriest Ovin stepped out of a sudden as if throwing aside some black curtain. Now all who had gathered before the Grinding Hall heard the sound of dripping water and felt the hesitant caress of a chill breeze. It carried the scent of rich and earthy loam. The Tsarpriest ushered the messenger within.

Down a long and winding way they went, bare and dusty stone beneath their feet. A solid emptiness on either side, the air suffused with dim and sourceless light. They came before Mahol, and though he towered over both men he was neither dire in his form nor wicked in his demeanour. He sat on a plain marble bench, and he seemed to push back the encroaching emptiness. "His Dreadfulness has deigned to hear your words Teschai, so speak," Ovin said as he took a place at his master's side. A gracious smile bloomed on the messenger's face as he bowed low to the godling before him.

"Your name is on the tip of every tongue in Tesch, and the deeds and works of your many servants are known to us. The good men have prevailed upon His Majesty to offer his favour in lieu of his censure. I, Yetho, have been commanded therefore to bring this message to you, to serve as my country's emissary," he said, and he showed the seal of Tesch burned to the back of his left hand. "You have made war upon the High King Nír, who is leal vassal to the Drakkanthron of Tesch, to His Majesty Harn Hazeret - first of his name. His Majesty is both compassionate and kind, and he will forgive your violence and your trespass. But you too must swear yourself his vassal, and then and only then shall the gifts of his favour come to you," Yetho said.

The silence stretched long, and Mahol bore down upon the messenger Yetho with the power of his eyes. But the man seemed unphased, that same sickening smile still plastered to his face. Only after many moments did Mahol relax his gaze and deign to speak: "Tell me little and less of the Drakkanthron. It must be so pleased with itself," he sighed. "And no, I'm not going to grovel in front of a chair. Go home and leave me alone, messenger."

"You are warned, Mahol. You should not think yourself safe. There are powers in this world as great as you. Should the Cold Iron Armada come down from the north - should your Obsidian City be reduced to scattered glass and stone - think on generosity spurned. The Drakkanthron makes no offer twice," Yetho said, his voice steady. "Cease your war with the Bractemenn, and find some peace with the King Nír. The eye of Tesch is upon you."

The messenger turned neatly on his heel and left the Grinding Hall, his boots clicking on the floor. His company awaited him, and he mounted his fine horse. The Teschai left the city.
Some time later Ovin at last dared to speak. "Well. We're not going to do that.... Are we?" he asked.

"No," Mahol said.

--------

Through a sea of swaying grass, and on. Past the lonely low humps of ruined cottages, and past the stumps of burned and hewen trees. The army of the Mahl is on the march, and they follow a black and ashen trail. Their god strides ahead, his steps stretching impossibly long. His body is orange-hot forge metal and the intensity of his eyes halos him in blue. The weeds and grasses crisp and smoke about him. The Tsarpriest Ovin rides behind, ordering the rudskins with the snapping cracks of a magefire whip. The Rethtimenn too have come in company, ensnared somehow by the godling. They cradle their bows lightly, columns of swift ponies flying across the plain. They have been marked, and elegant curving horns now sprout from their brows.

A road built high and straight and flat, and the trees growing ever taller. The Nírwood is deep and dark, and by kinship it is cousin to ancient Rem. Groaning horns and far-off shouts echo beneath the soaring canopy, and many eyes follow the passage of these trespassers. But the Mahlen do not fear. They carry fire with them, and their god walks serenely in their midst, his blue gaze fixed ahead. They are bound for Aediun, the High King's city. The Mahlen will destroy it. They shall defeat their greatest enemy, and they shall put a final end to half-a-hundred years of bitter war, and they will rejoice. Or they will die.

The host presses onwards, but the wood is quiet now. The trees watch their passage and whisper among themselves. How strange that there are no birds. The sun's light vanishes. A chant begins. Figures stepping out from every side, drifting in from the darkness. Long beards and brown cloaks and blood smeared hands; the guardian drudes of the wood. Hanging men are lowered slowly from the tallest branches, their feet kicking, their entrails dangling. The low war howls of the Bractemenn carry beneath the forest eaves.
"What a wretched sight," Mahol says. He senses the work about him. He watches and he waits.

The Bractemenn here have gathered all their warbands, and they seethe with fury. Long and vicious axes and razor sharp swords drip with sacrificial blood. Some of the men are naked and painted black, others wear the heads of savage forest beasts. Their women are among them carrying knives and short stabbing spears, garbed all in funeral clothes. They urge their men to freedom or to death. They cry and shout in frenzy, falling to their knees and rolling on the ground. The horde growls and stamps as the drude chant reaches its crescendo. The darkness deepens, descending like twisting fog on the Bractemenn, twining and caressing. The circle of firelight grows smaller. The torches and braziers dim, casting oily light and madly cavorting shadows. Only Mahol's light is unblemished. The folk of the Mahl form up closely, nervously. The Rethtimenn corral their whinnying frightened ponies at the centre, and they take up their bows and form into lines. The rudskins brace in front of them, spears held stiffly, taking up their own warsong to keep the darkness at bay. It reaches out in wisps, rolling in to press against the shield-line before fluttering away. A thousand and a thousand more thrown spears whistle in from the darkness, eerily accurate, striking men stone dead. The Mahlen huddle closer behind their shields.

"You feel it, don't you? The old hate they've made here. Awful and ancient. Even I - yes, I - could do nothing to stop it." Ovin says to his companion, his voice catching at the end. Abibaal shivers as the warmth and numina seems to leech from his body into chill air. "Just watch though. Just see what our God can do!" Ovin gasps, affected alike, nodding towards Mahol.
Mahol raises his left hand, and silver-bright light pours from it. The swirling dark recoils, revealing whole bands of the now flare-blind horde, crying out and shielding their eyes. The drudes raise their voices yet again. The dark attacks, crashing against the silver-bright. Kings and chiefs sound their warhorns and the Bractemenn come howling forward. Mahol raises his right hand. To Abibaal the scene seems caught in tableau for a solitary moment. A young rudskin, eyes squeezed shut, lips a bloodless line. The rapture writ plain on Ovin's face, hands raised to aid Mahol. The Bractemenn as they thunder in waves against the line. The sightless eyes of a hanging man peering into his own.

The silver-bright brightens, and all around the great trees burst into towering columns of flame. The Rethtimenn loose their bows, and the Mahlen push forward. The Bractemenn reel, chaos amidst. The heat bears down on them. The drudes struggle to control the flames, calling on rain and snow. But their cohesion is undone, and they pop in clouds of gore one by one, struck by an invisible fist. The warriors are brave and fight on, but the disciplined Mahlen push with their shields, stepping and stabbing, stepping and stabbing. The Bractemenn break. They fly into the inferno, more eager to face it than the Mahlen and their god. The flames die out as Mahol siphons them about himself in vortex. Burst and blackened trees crash to the ground.

"TAKE NEITHER SPOILS NOR SLAVES. YOU ARE FOR AEDIUN," the godling booms.

-----

A march away from the litter of ash and corpses the Nírwood ends, the trees suddenly parting to warm sunlight. Edenel. The supernal meadow; sweet and green. Butterflies floating and wispy white seeds drifting on the wind, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle in the far distance. The meadow stretches away to a gentle rise, where the city Aediun sits, a river rushing by. Walls of pale green stone, tall houses topped with trees. A pair of furies floating sedately above. Mahol steps from tree-shadow to grass, his presence revealed. The furies turn south, long whiskers twitching, grey flesh blushing red. As the army of the Mahl spills out onto Edenel distant horns sound atop ramparts laden with rose-vine and proud banners.

"WHERE IS NÍR? SEND THE MEN FORWARD, TSARPRIEST. FLUSH HIM OUT." Mahol says.
Ovin bows and signals the captains. The Mahlen advance. Mahol stands stock still, watching, orange-hot skin fading to dull red at the edges. The furies do their grisly work, and arrows and spears rain down from the walls, and for a moment the Mahlen are pushed back. A wide beam of magefire takes a fury in half, the air around it bubbling hot. The Rethtimenn circle the other on their swift ponies and leave it riddled with ten-thousand arrows. Slowly it comes crashing to the ground, tearing a long rent in the earth. The Mahlen are simply too many, and the gates will soon be open. But it doesn't matter, none of it. It was all only ever going to end one way.

"You don't have an eye for beauty. Do you, halfling?" Nír asks as Mahol turns to face him.

"Beauty is beheld. A coincidence of perception and basest construction," Mahol replies. Nír shrugs and rolls his shoulders. His antlers unfurl, dripping crimson.

"You are ignorant and arrogant, in this and in other ways. Your mother a fool, your father too weak and malleable - even if he saw the truth. One of us dies today, Mahol. But that is why you have come, after all," Nír says."Though my greatest powers have been stripped away, twenty-seven arts remain to me. If I had the barest flicker of Sourciere you would not stand here now. Nevertheless, you will not find this easy,"

"Good. Kill me if you can, Knight." says Mahol, flashing colour pooling in his cupped palm. Perhaps Nír struck first, or perhaps it was Mahol. Heat and light and flickering motion, all of it too fast to see or know. They stand apart a moment, and Nír favours a leg, rough bone poking from a mangled thigh.

"Bleed," Mahol commands.

"Break," Nír rejoins. Both struggle and heave, fighting some heavy weight bearing down. With effort Mahol begins to rise, getting a foot firm beneath. Nír knows he will be undone as he is slowly pressed to the ground. His bones begin to creak. There is desperation in his eyes and in the set of his mouth. "Enteo!" he calls crisp and clear, his voice filled with longing and regret. The air shimmers for a moment. A column of pure and brilliant numina lances into the sky as lightning arcs down to meet it. Mahol throws himself aside with a roar of pain and rage, opening a hellmouth beneath the Bloody Stag. Creation keens, rejecting this intrusion. Nír is taken up and swallowed down.

It is silent now. His breath is rasping. Where once Mahol had two arms, he now has one. Where once he had two sighted eyes, he now has none. Blood of molten blue drips down to grass and flower in a patter of tiny blazes. Ovin rushes to his master's side, laying hand to wound, fussing like a mother hen until thrown roughly away. Mahol lies there on his back, and he laughs.

Never before has he felt such delight. Never has he felt so alive.

-----

A malice has grown in Ath, taken root at the very center. The mages stalk the halls of their College like proud cats, standing apart from their fellows in cliques and closed circles. The Predicator's office is dissolved to the acclamation of conclave, and the worthies of the factions repair to their strongholds to plot and plan. Ah, politics. The ire of the Blues grows day by day as the Rozists pile insults atop them. The harbour is a Rozist fief, and so they make a treaty with Hayne to nettle their rivals; the ships of Nethrast no longer find any welcome in the city, their merchants banished. Things may soon go too far.

Master Rone has waited long for her moment. She has laid her webs carefully, her anchored threads cast out to far corners. The arrogant Rozists, the tepid Nalists. They will be removed. No longer can they be allowed to bar the way of progress! Of evolution! Unveil the Blue Mysteries.

The city shakes, worse than ever before, its towers cracking and shivering. Smoke pours from fissures out at sea, and the port is chaos as ships cast off, the mob thronging the docks. Unearthly screams carry from below the ground; from the College. The Blues have made their move. The killteams have their targets, and doors open to their trusted touch. But the Rozists have made themselves ready too. Colleagues and friends mow each other down with magefire and atomeaters. Cages break and prison doors unlock, and a slaughter is unleashed. Mages die by the dozens, by the hundreds. This wasn't supposed to happen. The Blues are driven slowly back, the College roused against them. Soon they have no choice. They must flee. Rone takes her followers to Nethrast, to the temple. The Rozists and the Nalists have won, but at what cost? Countless dead and a century of work destroyed. The walls are scrubbed of blood and the chambers put to order, but the College may never heal. There is no trust left to them.

The Temics are cast out, their arts too close to witchery. They kneel to old King Taeqos in the mountains, and they ask for his protection. His shoulders are still broad and powerful, but his legs are wrong and he walks with a cane. The soothsayer Hriam whispers in his king's ear, and so Taeqos grunts his assent. The Temics turn earth and fell trees, and they raise themselves a Soen in the low hills.

So too are the Zinists driven away - their studies now reprehensible, their numbers few. Begone, zirraf-lovers. And so they go. But not far. They have friends in Aterine. The gates open to them, and they make the city theirs. The clique settles eagerly to rule, and they name themselves Acadion. A grandiose effrontery. Well, if there were any left to take such obscure offense.

Athica is broken, a dream unrealized. Neighbouring realms snap at the edges, gobbling up border counties and towns. The white towers of Ath still stand against the sea, and perhaps they might yet seek to brush the tallest skies again some day.

-----

With mages now aboard their ships the Nethish galleos quickly humble those of Hayne. The Haynish Curia is humiliated before their people and before the countries of the Fugue Sea. Worse still, a ruinous tithe is placed upon them, tugging ever at the purse-strings. At night they nurse the embers of revenge, remembering their shame.

Heuther's city has bustled with activity and new constructions since Master Rone and her cabal first stepped from the pier. Though a peace is made with the mountain-men - though the mages have aided him in the defeat of his enemies - the Lord-Guardian is ill-pleased. Rone orders his men about as if they were her slaves, and she peers too deeply into his eyes. The Phoadrim are strangely encouraged by the mages in their midst, seeing perhaps the cusp of a greater eminence. Nethrast grows, its influence slinking slowly down the coastways, towns and harbours reluctantly taking up the fee. Still, didn't life seem so much easier for the Lord-Guardian when he only had to deal with Domovoi and his idiot lackeys?

Tunnels and caverns are hacked and chiseled from the rock below the city with muscle and magic both. The mages seem contented by their new warren, and the Blue Temple soon grows a College as attendant. The mages carve strange designs up and down the walls, and they raise idols to the ancient Kthonim. They sink deep, dark wells, sounding them with shining amethyst bobs. Down, down, down.

Domovoi is bade to summon Heuther one day, and he has never seen the Lord-Guardian filled with a greater or more powerful rage. Not even on the field of battle. Heuther curses, he splinters furniture, his fists stave walls."She summons me in my own city?" he asks, incredulous, a sudden placidity washing over him. Domovoi swallows nervously.

"Pray my Lord, be still in your deserved anger. My Master means no offense! She merely wishes for you to... see," he croaks.

"Then let us see," Heuther says.

Heuther peers up at a statue made from veined yellow stone. A strong and tall figure, face and shoulders hidden in high shadows. It is Apollyon-Kotet, they say. She invites him to kiss its feet, to place hand to heart. To bless the new idol - it is only proper, after all. A tug of annoyance still pulls at Heuther, but grudgingly he agrees and puts lips to cold stone toes. Rone speaks a few words and wishes the Lord-Guardian well, striding too-hastily off into the low light of blue flame.

"Only a trifle then, Lord," Domovoi says, his head hung meekly. Heuther narrows his eyes in reply. Later he regards himself by candlelight in his silvered mirror. He appears a stranger, somehow. A stranger with heavy secrets. The Lord-Guardian sleeps fitfully now, tossing and turning in his bed.

------

The zerrubs of Pardes hold vast swathes of the Nitheing Plain in their thrall, even to the very eaves of Baelnish Rem. None have dared to confront the maneater's children. Many clans have sworn their loyalty to the mountain-home, fearing the zirraf's depredations. He grows stronger and fouler with each passing of the moon-tears, as he eats endlessly of flesh. The whole bounty of the plain is at the service of his belly's hunger.

Gordis, King of Grist, bows before the maneater. He brings fine delicacies from the Baeln to Pardes-Court: fisher children and marsh weavers, a pair of savage Wealdings from far away, an albino girl with webbed toes and moss-green hair. The zirraf finds them a strange delight, the flavours delectably exotic. A favour for a favour, and the zirraf grants Gordis King a regiment of zerrubs, tall and clad in angled metal plates, cruel swords at their waists. He kowtows and scrapes, grinning inside. zirraf-of-exultations is well pleased by this servility, and sends the Gristings away. "Take my blessings with you, and send me more such fine morsels," he says, cleaning off his hands and donning tanned manskin gloves.

The Gristings have long prepared for this moment, hoarding arms and timber, woods strong and seasoned or soft and biddable. The city resounds with the sounds of saws and hammers as the invasion fleet is prepared. On the appointed day a horde of eager plundermen embark three dozen ships, the zerrubs four – high banks of double oars, slack banners of the toothen maw hanging on their prows. They set their shoulders to and row out onto black waters. By the next evening Grenning burns, its soldiers easy prey for deadly-swift zerrubs. The survivors are herded together and clapped in irons, cargo bound for Grist and Pardes beyond. A miserable few Grenns make good their escape, struggling upriver in a handful of blackships. They huddle terrified at the very top of the wilderness, and they are quickly forgotten.

But Pardes is not the only power that gropes and grasps in the basin. The Rozierey have come over-under with their weapons and their machines. They speak fine words of brotherhood, and they speak of coin and trade and friendship. All down the barrels of their guns. They push their iron road through mountain and jungle, and are met only with halfhearted skirmishing. The Baelnings have neither the bravery or the means to face artillery and shot, and they nervously regard Grist and its erstwhile ally across the lake. The railhead comes in sight of Habel at last, its progress inevitable. The Habelings and the Imms send delegation, Signores and Signoras sweating and smiling. Of course Karkeron is welcome, and of course they will accept the treaty, they say. So long as Karkerian arms guard safe the ports, and so long as Karkerian goods speed fast and free down the iron road to market, at any rate. But how many Steel-Hats can Karkeron send? Not nearly enough, for that city stretches thin its great ambitions. They may know their limitations, but they are not alone in all the world. Even the best laid plans fray at their edges, chaos seeking to undo them.

-----

In Karkeron they make themselves a Thinkery, which they name Institute, and there they gather all their sharpest minds. They peer into the mysteries of reality, and they struggle ever to understand. There is so much that has been lost, so much that will never be known again. But perhaps there are new things to know, things the ancients for all their glory simply couldn't see. Beneath their fortress they have made a great and spinning machine, gears within gears within gears, glowing with the light of numina. This is their Thought Engine, and they have set its mechanical mind a task: that it learn of anomes and the aether, of the hells and of the void and even the outermost realms. They have harnessed their waendeln - made by the hand of Mammoun himself - and placed it in a tangle of spinning energy, suspended at the very centre. With it they have torn a tiny hole in the membrane between realities, and even the mighty Thought Engine struggles to understand what it there beholds. It warns the Cabal of the dangers of this research, it worries that it looks too far and sees too much. It closes that terrible tear and peers instead into the hearts of stars, that it might forget its dread and its anxieties. The scholars and magi of the Institute pore over the reams of data the Engine has produced, and slowly they learn of useful things. Now they can speak to a man far away as if he stood beside them, and with no need for even the slightest application of anomes. Some in Karkeron are troubled, they worry that they proceed too quickly - they worry that they are not prepared.

No more shall the men of Karkeron fight in phalanx. It has served them well, just as it served the Rozier and his successors, but the Cabal declares that its time has passed, so enthused are they by their hot metal progress. It is obsolete, they say, and they arm their new Steel-Hat army with sturdy rifles and manically spinning guns. They point their long cannons at the sky, that shells might fall upon the foe from such a distance that he cannot see their origin.

The factory-forges of Karkeron are lit day and night now, and they churn out goods and arms at breakneck pace. More than the Rozierey could ever need. The sweating workers shovel black earth into the greedy furnaces, they pour the hot metal and they temper it, and they machine their parts on spinning lathes. It flows along the iron road down to the Baelnish ports, and thence to the sea and to the world. For all the tepid days of its uncertain independence Karkeron has had little to offer outsiders. Until now they have been as poor as the earth they've tirelessly tilled. Until now few have heard their city's name. But their will was never in doubt, and through its power they have made themselves great, and now word of the Iron City spreads far and wide, and the powers of Kothon turn their attention to its rise.

-----

The Cabal has seen the fabled city of Ker Isz, but only with the sight of the third eye. They must know it precisely, as they must know everything else. They send an expedition down the Alph, and the King Rhomes deigns to provide them the protection of his Usteys. They gallop along below the waves and keep their watch all about. None of the terrors of the Weald trouble this party of Rozierey. They pass by ruined Dis, and they are filled with trepidation. They have firm instruction in this regard: none are to enter. The Usteys usher them swiftly through. There are lights still lit in the ancient palaces, and the men shiver and huddle closer in their boats.

Their trip is uneventful, and at last they arrive at the Bay of Iszling. And it is a bay. There is no fabled island here, only a solitary rocky islet. They row up to see what they might see, and there they find a man. He is garbed in flowing metal cloth, and he eats a cold breakfast beside a small wooden kayak. The captain asks him who he is and his purpose there, and he simply replies that he was waiting. Waiting for who? For them of course. His name is Murh, and he calls himself a wizard. He claims to hail from the port of Zartogog, far and away to the south. He heard the Song of Karkeron many years ago, but he could not answer. Then he saw the Island of Dusk, and he knew the singers would come. He was as surprised as they that nothing stood where his third eye saw such greatness. Murh asks if he can return with them to Karkeron. Eager to show his masters something instead of nothing the captain gamely agrees.

-----

She awoke that morning to pain. A splitting headache, her brow raw and swollen. Her horns had finally sprouted at fourteen, but still she was less pleased than you might think. Tinn ate her breakfast oats sullenly, her grandmother fussing over her alternately with annoying enthusiasm or sage advice - which was even worse. The horns were a blessing from Grandfather Mohl, and the Rethi had not had such things when she was young, Tinn's grandmother said. Her younger brother simply stared wide-eyed at her horn-buds as he loudly ate his oats. Tinn made a face at him and he looked away.

She went out to tend to her pony, and to the family's herd of sheep. It had been this way for awhile. Her mother and father had been called to war against the cold-men, and her grandmother was too old. So it was her job, and she took them out on to the range. The sheep knew what they were about, and freed from their corral they made for the stream and a cool drink. Tinn sat there on a big rock, soaking in the morning sun. Though others from the village were there with their own animals she kept a keen watch, her riding bow cradled in her lap. A boy she knew came up to her, holding his shepherd's staff in one hand, another behind his back.

"What do you want, Emer?" Tinn asked, favouring him with that particular foreboding glare unique to teenage girls. He met her eyes with hesitation and quickly held out his hidden hand. It was a wreath of twined grasses, a pattern of squares and circles woven in its centre.

"I heard you got your horns, Tinn.. so I made this for you," he said as she took it from him gingerly. "I couldn't find any flowers.. but it wouldn't be right if you didn't get anything. I hope I get my horns soon! Girls are lucky that they get theirs first."

"The flowers never grow anymore, and the horns aren't so great. They hurt and they itch," she said, rubbing at her brow with the back of her arm.

"Oh. A priest rode in with some rudskins about an hour ago. Maybe you should ask him about it?" Emer suggested.

"A priest? From the City?" Tinn asked. Emer nodded. She gathered up her bow and her things in a hurry, seeming suddenly flustered. "Watch my sheep, Emer!" she called as she leaped to the saddle, leaving him there by the slow-moving river.

A crowd was gathered at the centre of the village, on the green grass before the Nay's wooden hall. Old Nay Rebbin stood talking with the city-man. His shoulders were hunched, and he seemed somehow defeated. The older boys and girls had gathered their ponies and their bows, their grandparents pushing satchels and mementos into their hands. The priest's skin was light brown, his hair black. A southerner then, from the sea-shores. Four rudskins sat awkwardly atop deep-chested mares, watching. Their feet were tied to their saddles with dangling ropes, and they cradled long lances in the crooks of their arms. Tinn rode up to the Nay, hopping lightly from her pony. "What's happening? Why is everyone going?" she asked. Old Nay Rebbin opened his mouth as if to speak, but the priest answered first.

"Our Grandfather has need of more Rethi bows, cousin. The cold-men test our courage and our faith. They are as numerous as the blades of grass in the fields." he said. Tinn felt an anger welling up inside her, felt her stomach flutter and her skin prickle.

"Haven't you taken enough from us!?" she yelled, stepping forward. "You've taken our parents and now you take our brothers and our sisters! Why don't you just get it over with and take us all? We work every day for Grandfather. Half our wool, half our cheese, half our furs and honey. What has he ever done for us but dig our graves?" The priest was taken aback, his eyes opening wide. The Nay moved to get between them, sputtering and placing his hand on Tinn's shoulder. But then the priest smiled, motioning Rebbin to stillness.

"You have spirit, girl. I could flay you for that... but tell me, what is your name?" he said.

"Tinn," she answered defiantly.

"You will come with me, Tinn. To the City; to Avrazh. Our Grandfather will answer your questions himself, and then you will know why he does as he must." the priest said. Tinn thought of leaving her grandmother and her brother, and her heart sickened. But she had already decided that this was something she had to do. She nodded to the priest, her jaw set firmly. He looked into her eyes and she looked back, trying to perceive this man as he really was, knowing somehow that what she saw wasn't the whole truth.

He laughed then. A hearty and soulful laugh that carried across the green. Many eyes had watched him that day, but only Tinn's had seen him.

------

Though few will admit it, Amasque is besieged. Beyond Heru's high walls it is the Nitheings who rule, and they are always watching, looking for the smallest weakness. The city has become crowded with an ever-multiplying throng of the dispossessed, and so many mouths weigh even on the deep coffers of the Curia. As in older days the Phoadrim prepare a colony. Near five-hundred families volunteer, and they are sent out onto the Fugue with little more than their ships and their prayers. Despite hardship and loss they persevere, and on an island to the north they settle and build the city Diom. A city of its own, but bound to Amasque by the iron threads of kinship and obligation.

But still the urban poor clamour and quarrel, and so they too are put to use. Great Amasque – the Star of the South! - will no longer be subject to the whims and lusts of these Nitheing barbarians. With enough silver near anything can be bought, and so the Amasquani buy themselves experience and skill. The city calls for men of war, and they come, drawn by the siren song of a jingling purse. Here are mercenaries from Grist, landless Sormish veterans, Sakyne warriors and the dog soldiers of the Kunotara. The Curia names its Polemarchs and it furnishes them with great and unconscionable sums. From upriver they purchase fine swords and coats of plate of a like they have never seen, each identical and of surpassing quality. And so they will have their army, and matters will be put aright one way or another. In a great camp south of the river – a teeming city of tents - the mob is trained and drilled by their motley instructors. The regimen is brutal and exhausting, and it is well that the Amasquani are made of sterner stuff than their northern kin, or perhaps all would be for naught.

At last they are prepared. Unseal the landgate, take down its girding chains! The men come forth in ordered blocks and marshal on the field, their foreign officers shouting commands in strange accents. It is not long before the Nitheings are espied. They are no fools, and they have watched and they have waited, and singing rhythmic chants they assemble too-quick, long before the Phoadrim are prepared. The tagma stares down the bull's horns. Kalit, the Lion of Nime, comes forth as her warriors cheer her, holding her spear above her head. She waits alone in no-man's-land. The Polemarch Oban rides out to meet her. She is tall and lithe and chestnut brown, and her muscles ripple beneath her skin.

"You have come to fight me, fodr! Have you fugue-men grown spines since last I looked?" she says, her face creasing with mirth.

"This land is the land of my fathers. If you give battle you will all die," Oban replies.

"You are a man-tower, and that I almost believe! But I have killed stronger men than you," she says, looking up at him with a smile in her eyes. "Here I see your iron army in long metal coats, and I see how prettily they stand. Do not mistake me, fodr, my warriors would not lose against you. But I think many of them would die, and I have other foes."

"Then what are we to do, Nitheing?" Oban asks. Kalit considers for many long moments, and she looks the Polemarch up and down.

"Your walls are very tall. Very strong. Can the Nitheings ever reach inside? Maybe. I am not alike to other Lions. I do not fight just to fight. I will not have my people die for stupid pride alone," she says, pausing a moment, looking back. "You will be my bridegroom, man-tower. I have heard you strangled the river-prince, that you strode boldly through his halls. This is worthy, I think. Your rich city will give me a rich dower, and you will give me strong children, and then there will be peace. You will come to Nimat-Nime, and we will bathe you in cow's blood and make of you a Nitheing." At this Oban stands silent.

"I will take this to the Curia," he says cautiously, turning his horse about.

"You will be back soon I think, man-tower. Before the week is out you will put a child in me! This I know," she calls after him, her voice laughing.

It took eight chests of silver and one of gold before she would assent to terms, but Kalit was not wrong.

-----

There is a sickness in the east beyond the far eaves of the Weald, and rumour spreads afore its coming. It is said that the dead set themselves upon the living, that grain rots on the stalk and the people starve. Cats and dogs speak with the voices of men, and forests of trees grow legs to walk about. On warm summer mornings a sweet jasmine wind sweeps west, its scent wafting through the stone halls of Karkeron and about the greening courts of the centaurs alike. Shadows move in the city of Dis. Wealdings flee north and south, a mindless fear upon them.

A great bier encrusted in gems and bone grinds its way through the trackless depths of the Weald. It is pulled by strange lumbering beasts on groaning wheels, and enthroned atop it is a a mummified corpse bedecked in splendid and sumptuous cloth of gold. Behind it trails a train of millions - the starving and the destitute clad in rags, armed companies of cruel men in tarnished armor, forest zerrubs atop noble woodland hounds, their human brides dressed in white, herds of savage centaurs painted in garish colours and festooned in fetishes, grim-faced giants and knee-high sharps – a countless multitude. Before the bier and this host of hosts strides a single figure, dark of countenance, a starry cloak upon his back. He names himself zirraf-by-the-water, and he has bound the far countries to his purpose.

At this dire hour the King Rhomes comes to Karkeron, and he is afforded every courtesy. His hooves are shod in starsteel and an emerald cloak of crystalweft is on his back. There is no crown atop his head. He speaks before the Cabal, and he tells them what they face. Alone he went into the wood, and he stood before the figure on the road. The king bade the zirraf turn back, but he refused. The zirraf sought to compel Rhomes' service as in days of old, and looking into his eyes he tried to place a binding upon him. The zirraf and the centaur king fought then, and the power the king faced was grave indeed, and he was driven off in peril of his life. Rhomes is afraid, and they can see it. Rhomes who killed the Sorcerer and tore down his tower. He affords the cabal a secret knowledge. It was Mammoun that he fought. No, but it was not Mammoun. It was something worse, something with all the goodness and rightness taken out of it, bleak and weathered. It was not Mammoun.

The king does not know the purpose of zirraf-by-the-water's coming, but he fears it all the same. The host of hosts feeds upon itself, the strong eating of the weak. And so only the strongest survive, and then those stronger still, and so they are bound ever closer to the zirraf. This is no anomic compulsion, but the same that man, centaur and zirraf have always used. The coercions of strength and cruelty. Having seen all this he calls his clans to him, and he girds his country for war. He asks of the Cabal that they do the same. They confer amongst themselves late into the night.

In the morning there is red writing on the sky for all to see: "I HAVE COME TO TAKE BACK WHAT IS MINE. BRING ME THE STONE. I WILL NOT BE DENIED."

-----

She goes before her people, and they cry and weep to see her. "Mother, mother!" they call out as they tear at their clothes and hair. She takes her son up from her hip and holds him high, and the crowd gasps. They are brought all to stillness, enchanted by his beatific face, by the gentle rise and fall of his chest. "His name is Tythas," she says. And so the bells rang in Bejeweled Sensinsal.

[TheMeanestGuest]

A Selection of Player Contributions

---

By Thlayli

Some Considerations Of Reproduction, and Madness

[spoiler]The zirrafim, it is said, do not reproduce. Some scholars, most notably Pulcheron the Elder, have theorized that the number of zirrafim is a constant woven into the fabric of the universe, such as the total weight of the matter that all existence can possess, or the speed with which a mortal-made sound reaches the ears. As such, when a zirraf dies, or is killed, a small part of creation is itself destroyed.

As for the cthonim, their methods are known. The frigid lords of punishment and order were known to reproduce, but not of any coupling between them. Rather, their children split off from themselves, like a glacier leaving a great embankment of northern ice. This splitting often weakened the father, and tales of newly-born cthonim slaying and consuming their parents abound in the canon.

With that said, we must make a distinction between what can exist and what should exist. These two classes of Greater Anomic Beings are known, upon them a great body of scholarship and legendaria exists, and their doings have shaped the mortal world. It can, however, be reported with great sorrow that a third class of being is said to exist. The details, such as they are, are not properly known. However, the first rule of an investigator is that to dismiss the source of any legend is the swiftest route to the investigator's death.

Let us then report that on one occasion, a coupling between a zirraf and cthon is said to have occurred, and that the offspring of such a union *cannot* exist, and yet does. Imagine now a being with the superior intelligence and anomic capability of a cthonic or zirrafic lord, that knows with placid clarity that it cannot have a soul. The magnitude of a disaster such a being could wreak upon our world is incomprehensible, for the desires of such a creature, coupled with its natural power, could prove more devastating than the summoning of a greater demon.

All such reports indicate that it has awoken.

We have been told not to utter its name, for that it knows.[/spoiler]

The Reusurpation

[spoiler]Ovin wiped the sweat from his brow, but a few stray drops still managed to coalesce around his temples, and little circles of perspiration were staining the dark red cloth of his robe by his underarms and continued to seep outward. He tugged on the rope twice. Descend. And far above, Arsevy and Gulaz and the winch crew lowered him further. Three years, to cow the people into funding this expedition, to rattling coin jars before the temple walls, to doing...unpleasant things. All of it led up to this moment.

The Inflective Chamber. At last. They had burrowed through half of a mountain to get here, made their way through mazes of tunnels, lost three good men and women to an enraged salamander...but all their sacrifices were worth this moment.

Ovin, High Priest of the Maholim, was going to awaken a god.

Six large columns stood at the base of the chamber, as he knew they would, each carved from a different manner of stone. Obsidian, marble, jade, lapis, heliotrope, and serpentine. From them lines of muted fire traced towards a central sphere, forming a complex web of seals.

Ovin walked slowly around them to each line, praying that the spells of unbinding he had practiced for decades would work. Each one increased in difficulty and complexity as he circled; he suspected this was part of the test. When he reached the last one, he realized that he would have to give up a necessary and irreplaceable part of himself to break the spell. He had decided to try offering his fertility, and the counterspell accepted it. Of course, to a priest under a vow of celibacy, that didn't matter that much. Hopefully he didn't change his mind about having children.

Finally, the lines of fire severed, the door in the perfect sphere of polished basalt slowly rumbled open. Just as the scriptures said it would. Truly, the faith he had kept throughout all those years of self-doubt was finally validated by this glorious moment. For generations, no, centuries, priests of his order would speak his name with reverence. Ovin the Restorer. Or maybe...Ovin the Discoverer. Well, this wasn't the time.

Ovin sprinkled the entryway with holy water and placental blood, which began to glow and spark as he intoned the words in ancient High Uthramaic.

"Oh unquiet voice, oh inevitable union, we have heard your call. Now, oh promised offspring of zirraf and cthon, awaken from your slumber and claim your dominion!"

"Are you joking?"

An eight-foot tall humanoid with glowing orange-red skin and ice-blue eyes emerged naked from the chamber.

"I...what?"

"I built this place to sleep, you know. I didn't really want to be woken up."

Ovin said, "...really?"

The figure said. "Yes. And I can read your mind, which you do not even attempt to shield from me. Your religion is mostly lies, built on hearsay. I am not your promised god."

Ovin deflated the way that someone would if you proved to them them that their life's work was based around a lie. "So...you're going to kill me then?"

The figure looked weary. "I don't understand why that's always the first thing humans default to fearing. No, I have a worse fate for you."

"Torture?"

"Immortality. You woke me up, you're going to bear the consequences."

"I...guess I can live with that."

"Very funny."

"You do seem rather godlike in stature, for one who is not a god."

"I didn't say I wasn't a god, or at least close enough to it. I just said I wasn't your god."

"...oh."

"So..."

"So."

"Are my parents still ruining the world?"

"It depends on who you ask. But if you want to know if they're alive, well...the cthonim are dead and the zirrafim have mostly left this world."

"Ahh. Mother always said that I would straighten out after a good millennial rest. Perhaps she was right. Too bad she's dead or gone forever."

"Or perhaps not too bad, if she was, ah, ruining the world?" Ovin laughed weakly.

"Perhaps. So what was it you mortals called me? Oh," he said, querying the memory from Ovin's brain in a way that made him dizzy, "Maholim. That's...fine. Though there is only one of me. Mahol."

"So...you're not going to destroy the world in an orgy of rage at being woken up?"

"No, I'm afraid not. If I did that I would be alone in the broken vastness of space, and that's when boredom would really start to set in."

Ovin pondered this for a moment.

"What will you do instead?"

He gestured to the chamber around him. "Build an empire large enough to construct another chamber to put me back to sleep until the universe ends."

"You can't just reuse this one?"

"That's not how these things work."

The newly immortal High Priest scratched his beard. "Have...you tried killing yourself?"

Mahol just looked at him.

"Right, right. Ah...what about terrorizing the world and forcing great champions to try and kill you?"

The reluctant god sighed, and it echoed through the room. "I suppose I could try that again."

"Oh, don't be so glum," Ovin said. "It could be fun."

"You're just happy because you just got made immortal. Trust me, it wears thin after about two hundred years."

"Maybe us humans will surprise you. Now, how about coming upstairs and leveling this mountain to impress the local tribes into forming your first army?"

"Nobody ever asks me to make their flowers grow."

"...can you?"

"No. But that's not the point."

"Well, sometimes it's rewarding to do what you're good at."

The ghost of a smile began to form around Mahol's mouth, and he levitated slightly off the ground. Robes of liquid silver formed around his body, and a crown of molten crystal appeared on his brow.

"YES, LITTLE PRIEST." he said. "I SUPPOSE IT IS."[/spoiler]

Sins of the Father

[spoiler]The bleak expanse of the plains smoked with the effusions of recent magical combat, witchfires burning crazily two and fro without any nomic energy source to be seen for the uninitiated. Two Furies circled miles distant, occasionally giving out piercing cries of solemn sadness, the green pavilions of the host of the Bractemenn lying within their slow, circular orbit.

The Tsarpriest floated above the hedgeworks of his own army, watching them. And he was angry.

"MAHOL," he prayed. "You have not stirred for three years. Your assistance in this matter would be appreciated, as I am but ONE man."

"The mothers of the Mahl have born children with my mark," returned the whisper. "Their skin grows red and thick."

"That is all fine and good, but blood-crazed Mahlen cannot kill a Fury. Nor can I."

"I am sleepy. Come back in a decade."

"No! Get up, you have rested enough."

The whisper sighed. "Come here."

A silver chain materialized from his navel, and it whiplashed him a thousand miles through time and space. He felt his bones rematerialize, then his organs, then his skin.

They were standing on a mountain peak, endless cold moonlit immensities marching off into the distance.

"I have been completing a ritual," said Mahol. A thousand wires of light surrounded him, a slowly rotating globe of symbols, each one an unutterable understanding of things that have no mortal tongue.

"Is this the Rkad Mountains?"

"This is where Mother killed Father. He tried to hide me from her. She pierced his eye with a solar lance and carved out his crystalline heart. That she burned."

"Ah," said Ovin. "Difficult childhood."

Mahol looked at him sidelong. "She made me watch, as Father's body shattered and grew the mountains."

"Grew?"

"They were lords and also seeds. Their spirits were broken so Mother's sisters could grow green from the Algid Earth."

"And now?"

Mahol spread his arms. The molten crown appeared above his head. Ovin had learned that this was only when he was about to make a great manifestation.

"My father's...shards...will rise."

Mahol spoke a single word, a word that was above what could be and also below it. It was a scream and the clang of a bell, and the rush of the wind.

He pointed at a mountain, a nameless titan of ice and snow.

The mountain broke in half.

And from its core, something sharp and crystalline with a long thin head that ended in a spike emerged on limbs of spindles. It looked up at the god and his servant with glowing blue eyes.

"> T < K | !" it said.

"< > < I X," said Mahol.

"Hello, I'm Ovin," said Ovin.

Mahol raised his hands and eight more mountains all about them cracked with the sound of smashing glass lowered four octaves into the deep.

Cthonic shards emerged from each, glittering forms of spiked crystal climbing out of the ground like giant spiders.

"That should kill a few Furies, I suppose," said the priest.

"When you have killed the servants of the Champion, summon Me," said Mahol. "Go."

The demigod collapsed in on himself and vanished, his symbol hanging in the air and the mind for a few seconds more.

"How like him to not send me back. Let's get on with it," Ovin said.

The cthonic shards chittered to themselves, and lept into the air, jumping from peak to peak, the floating priest at their fore.

They headed north.[/spoiler]

At the Black Throne

[spoiler]The girl stood before a god, a petulant frown upon her face. Little downy wool-lined hood pulled down behind her head, childish chubbiness in the midst of elongating into womanly grace, her horn-stubs protruding from her forehead, not yet begun to curl. She looked, if nothing else, annoyed.

"It is curious," said the Tsarpriest, floating on a couch of shadow high above as delicate disembodied hands fed him the occasional grape of anomic soul-stuff, ambrosia of pseudo-immortality. "I detect nothing in her that should allow her to withstand the awe and dread of your revealed presence."

He had taken three years to regenerate. The victory of the battered, eyeless god carried on a throne of spears, triumphant to Avrazh, had already been immortalized in a terrible frieze before the outer gates.

Mahol sat on the Obsidian Throne, at the heart of the mountain that was at the heart of the city that had grown up around the Unslumbering Tomb, as his palace was often called, perhaps ironically, by the Tsarpriest who had once followed whispers to the awakening. His typical posture was outward boredom, the weeks of silence of a god whose mind may be elsewhere, roving and probing and micromanaging the dreams of some obscure peasant who only the probabilistic intelligence of a deity can see will one day cast a slingstone that will kill a commander's lover that will turn the tide of a war, or might, if his subconscious was managed correctly.

Gods are bureaucrats in five dimensions, thought Ovin often. The unneed for paperwork did not obviate the need for drudgery, or the seeming of it when Mahol lapsed into unutterable silences on obscure tasks. But it's hard to argue with results.

For his part, Mahol was awake. His eyes, not pupiled but filled with ever-altering geograms fringed with fire, were unveiled. The revelation of power is typically the first thing a deity does to cow those who are not worthy to withstand his presence, and even Ovin could not bear to look at the fusion of zirrafic and cthonic order-chaos, the Angular Flame of incomprehensible potential that ever grew. Hence his distance.

Head rested on his fist as he looked at the child, who continued to stare at him, her mouth a little scrunch of annoyance.

"Why is it that I do not affect you?" he finally said to her.

"Because, you're just a big bully!"

"The sun is a great golden bully, forcing the earth into chained orbit," called the Tsarpriest from above. "But though the earth might cry and quake, it can never ignore the golden call. Not so you," he said curiously, swinging his prayer-robed legs off the couch.

"There are no prophecies," he continued, addressing Mahol. "No anomic power sources, no tethers to Beyond, no visions, nothing. She is as special as a loaf of bread."

"Quiet," said Mahol. Ovin complied. I suppose loaves of bread are special in their own way...

The god shifted slightly on his throne. "What is your name?"

"It's Tinn," she said sullenly.

"There is nothing in her that compels my presence to silence," Mahol said slowly, discoveringly. "Rather, it is my presence itself which has changed. I cannot flay her with mind-fire, or awe her into a mote...because part of me acknowledges that she is a key."

"I'm not a key. I'm just a girl. And I just want you to know that you're hurting the world! I know this, because I hurt too."

"Why is it that the world has importance? Your beating heart and wet, preservative emotions tell you it must be. It has no meaning. Step beyond that conception."

"Then destroy me if you disagree!" She spread her arms wide, balling her fists. "Do it!"

"She lacks all pride," whispered the Tsarpriest. "In lacking all pride, and lacking all power..." he blinked quickly, as if coming to a realization that he did not quite fully grasp.

"I cannot destroy you yet," said Mahol. "For I do not yet understand. Ovin, give her everything she might desire."

"Tinn, we name you Rethi Queen. Show us your hidden meanings."

The fourteen year old girl, suddenly queen of her people, sighed. "I just want the flowers to come back..." She turned away, walking for the exit, picking up her grandmother's crooked shepherd's staff.

"Flowers," whispered Mahol, and a million crimson blooms pushed out of the soil of the Rethi, bleeding a teardrop scarlet nectar.

"Nír..."[/spoiler]

---

By Iggy

Domovoi's First Letter

[spoiler]Wisest Teacher,

I am comfortably ensconced in Nethrast as I write to you this letter, the first part of what I hope to be a long and fruitful correspondence. I have reviewed my predecessor's notes, and will expand upon them as I see fit.

The Nethrast-folk seem to fit broadly into two categories: sailors and merchants, hard-featured men with thick black hair, often wavy; and round-faced farmers, red and brown in their hair and light in their eyes. Phoadrim, the former... the latter, bot-standard continental peasant stock, much like those back t home.

In character, the peasants are simple and skittish. I would describe them as rodent-like: they are pleased enough to go through their unspeakably dreary lives, but will quickly flee or cower when they encounter anything out of their limited experiences. The greater part of their population reveres Heosë, in various amusing and rustic forms. They see her as a bringer of health and good harvests, which seem to be their only earthly concerns.

The Phoadrim overclass is, frankly, little better. There is a local strong-man, Heuther, who styles himself 'Lord-Guardian' of the city and surrounding countryside. From my own observations and the notes of my predecessor, his authority is purely military, and his position is supported by the 'Lords-Merchant', a seafaring gang of plutocrats with similarly bombastic titles.

However, what these men lack in worldliness, they make up for in unchecked ambition and credulity. It takes a fool to achieve the impossible, for it is he who knows no limits. I have successfully inducted a large number of these Phoadrim men, and some women, into the faith of our construction, which they refer to as 'The Blue Mysteries'. They're dreadfully easy to impress: I disintegrated one of the Lords-Merchant, being careful to pick one who was unpopular with his peers, as a demonstration of the power which could be theirs, should they heed my teachings.

I have inculcated in them our account of the downfall of the Kthonim, and the usurpation by the Zirrafim. They are now prepared, and eager to learn. With your permission, I would like to proceed to the second stage of our plan.

Your unfailingly loyal student,

Domovoi[/spoiler]

Domovoi's Second Letter

[spoiler]Wisest Teacher,

Our long experiment proceeds with distraction aplenty. The Lord-Guardian Heuther has grown increasingly brazen in his anomic activities, and the Blue Temple is awash with the power of the Kthonim.

These Phoadrim have indeed proved themselves capable of handling anomes, although their creativity is sadly lacking. The Lord-Guardian directs all of his efforts towards the rather base goal of controlling beasts and simple men. While the idea of extending mental domination over others is intriguing, it breaks no new ground and does precious little to further the primary purpose of our whole scheme. It may be advisable to remove Heuther from his position of power, to prevent his influence from further retarding our plans.

As the realm of Nethrast grows, I must confess my growing discomfort with what we have done. The power of the Kthonim was once great, and an attempt to recreate the powers of a past age is as alluring as it has ever been... but I feel that we have acted too quickly, too incautiously, and at too great a scale. The sheer political and military power exerted by the Lords of Nethrast may come to even threaten our college, and we may have begun to nullify our own military disadvantage, should our operation run afoul of our 'pupils'.

We may no longer be in full control of the situation.

I intently await your response.

Your unfailingly loyal student,

Domovoi

- Heuther cocked an eyebrow as his eyes passed over the last words of the letter. Calmly, he placed it back into its envelope, placing the parchment on a table beside the hearth. Without a word, he placed on his winter cloak, and strode outside into the rain.[/spoiler]

An Evening in Nethrast

[spoiler]Night had just fallen. Rain fell heavily outside. It seemed like it was always rainy, in this late time of year. I was in my study, poring over the new texts only just recovered from the Nivian College, when it happened. Two swift raps at my door.

"I don't take visitors without-"

"It is me, Domovoi."

The Lord-Guardian!

"Now open the door, or am I now unwelcome in my own-"

I cast the door open. Lord Heuther stood before me. On his blocky head rode a dull, metal helm. His eyes were faintly luminous in its shadow.

"-fortress?"

"Of course not, my Lord. Come in. How may I serve you?"

Heuther stepped inside, wiping the mud off of his boots at the threshold. A servant took his greatcloak and placed it upon a peg in the wall.

"Honeyed words, Domovoi."

My eyes widened, but I suppressed any further reaction.

"I protest, Lord-Guardian, honeyed?"

Heuther sat himself down in my armchair, interlocked his fingers, and examined me. Those damnable eyes of ice! I weathered this silent interrogation, meeting his gaze. At length, Heuther's severe mask cracked, and he gave a short bellow of laughter.

"Ha ha! Come, sit Domovoi. We have matters I must discuss."

I looked around. The Lord-Guardian had taken my chair. I looked around, and pulled a neglected footrest into position. The fireplace crackled to our side.

"Loyal allies are hard to come by." He stared at me again for some time, before continuing. "That is why I am glad I have you, my magus."

He was toying with me. Why?

"Do you fear treachery, my lord?"

"Fear, no. But treachery is a bitter drink I've sipped before. I'd rather not taste it again."

"Then do you suspect?

"Rone... she is your master, yes?"

"My master's master, sir. I am still but an apprentice in the ways-"

Heuther bade me to stop, and I silenced myself.

"Would you tell me that I should trust her?"

"I would sir."

"Yet she is powerful. Powerful indeed. And this makes me unhappy."

"She does not mean you ill, my Lord."

"But she does mean something for me, Domovoi." The Lord-Guardian gave me a pointed look.

"I beg your pardon?"

"She intends something. What it is, I haven't yet penetrated. But I believe that you know."

My gut tightened in cold fear. My face remained controlled, and I cocked an eyebrow.

"Surely just a furtherance of your investigations into the azure arts- but I cannot say for sure, I do not know all that my superiors have studied, nor all that they planned..."

"Domovoi." The Lord-Guardian's voice was stern as he cut me off, almost impatient, as if he were speaking to a child.

"I took you in, just an itinerant preacher, I let you spread your words to my fellows. I have placed a great deal of trust in you, Domovoi."

Not strictly true, I thought. I was hardly welcomed at first, but after I annihilated Lord Gotric in demonstration of my powers, the petty lords all but begged me to stay and teach them. Though Heuther was right: he had placed a great deal of trust in me and my word. I nodded in response.

"Now would you profess yourself loyal to me?"

"My lord! Of course I would, and I do!"

"Before your master? Before his master?"

My mouth opened at once to shout 'yes'. In truth, I knew my duties were mixed. But now was not the time to betray myself with hesitation.

Heuther raised his hand before I could speak, and gave me a warning gesture. His face darkened as he spoke.

"Tread. Carefully." After a brief pause, he spoke my name. "Domovoi."

The room fell silent, but for the dull roar of rainfall and the crackling of the fireplace before us. It felt uncomfortably warm now. Heuther's stare maintained its effortless intensity, and he leaned forward towards me.

"I am... familiar... with your correspondence to your 'wisest master'."

My insides lurched and I felt a sweat break out across my body in a wave. He knew. He knew! This was no bluff! Did he know the plan as well? Of course he did! My mind raced, as I reassessed where everyone stood in this elabourate scheme.

"I am well aware that the Blue Mysteries are a construct." Heuther continued. "And that they were devised by you, your master, and others who have since come to Nethrast as refugees, cast out for attempting to usurp their old lands."

I was stony silent, my thoughts surging a mile a minute. The plan was now in a dire place, terribly close to irrevocable derailment. But not quite hopeless. It could be stopped. Heuther shared few secrets, if he died, Nethrast's knowledge of the scheme would perish with him. But without Heuther... they'd know who did this! It would be obvious! His army would turn on us, and the city would become a warzone. This safe haven for my anome-wielding kin would become an abattoir. Maybe a slow poison to take him down without suspicion? But Lord Heuther is a hale man, it would not be easy. And I needed an answer now, to stop this all before it got out of control.

Or... the plot could be changed. We could proceed. More boldly. With him in the know. Or at least... more aware than he had been before. Than I had assumed he had been before.

Lord Heuther broke the silence with a strange, lilting whistle. I barely saw his lips move. Four armed men entered the room. My eyes darted across them. I could take them.

"I would advise against hurting my men." he said, noting my glance. "It would not end well for you."

The four guards took positions around me, each just out of arm's reach.

"Now, Domovoi... where now do your loyalties lie? Explain yourself. And utter no more falsehoods before me." Heuther nodded to one of his soldiers.

No more time to stall. No more second chances. I had to lay it all on the table.

"To you, Heuther. To you. I serve you, and answer first to you. I have been in contact with my master in Athica for every year that I have been in Nethrast. My master and I have long sought to harness the power of the Kthonim, to access the phenomenal and perhaps untapped power that was before. We thought that by introducing it as a faith, by bringing it as someone naïve to the anomes, and unaware of the constructed nature of this plan, we could unlock that which was impossible in the strict, dogmatic, cautious limits of the College. And... and now you know. And now I fear that all of this work may go astray, or tumble catastrophically into naught."

Heuther nodded, impassively. His guards shifted uncomfortably. I wondered, briefly, if they could even comprehend what was being said, and hoped desperately that they couldn't. Otherwise, decades of work would begin to unwravel even faster.

"I suspected as much. And you considered killing me."

Oh hells. Had he seen that letter too?

"Yes, my lord. I had."

"Explain yourself."

"I feared that we were losing control of our experiment. I was frightened, and I sought to control that which was slipping from my grasp."

"And what has changed since then, to make you profess your undying fealty to me? Or is this... just the response of a man who fears for his life?" Suddenly, Heuther's impassive expression looked different. Was it... disappointment? Sadness? I had not before known the man to express such vulnerability.

"There are few men that I can trust, Dom. I'd have wanted you to be one of 'em."

"Lord-Guardian... I have failed you. And I have misled you. But I can do so no longer." I prostrated myself before him. "I pledge my renewed loyalty to you and you alone. Take this, or take my life!

I lay still, face down on the floor. In a way, I was calm now. My life's work might have been falling apart, but my long-maintained cloak and dagger rigmarole was now swept away. It was oddly liberating, and I felt a strange sort of peace.

"I know."

I remained still, as Heuther pondered his next words.

"I know you'll be trusty."

Heuther took a sharp breath, and tapped me on the shoulder, indicating for me to get up. "I suppose I should say... I know you'll still be one of them. One who I can count on. Now this plan of yours... let's talk. Where does Rone stand?"

"I swear on all the powers, I do not know. I suspect she may be trying to revive a fallen Kthonim within the vessel of your body, or channel its power through you. Or perhaps she knows something that my master and I do not, and she seeks to bring you under her sway."

The Lord-Guardian of Nethrast nodded with a frown. "And had this been your plan?"

"No, my lord. I know that all that my master and I have done, has had the effect of strengthening you. Whatever Rone plans... I am not privy to it."

"Very well then. Domovoi. Know now that your experimentation will continue. Indeed, it must continue. But I may no longer remain ignorant of your work."

"Understood sir. But it may be impossible for you to proceed if you keep yourself aware of what we are trying to do."

"I will manage." he stated flatly, tapping his helmeted head twice, "Now as for the would-be mage queen, Rone. You must find out what she's doing. Find out and tell me. I will plot my next move from there."

"Yes sir."

"And one last thing, Domovoi."

"Yes, my liege?"

Heuther reached into one of his pockets, and pulled out a black, wooden box. He passed it to one of the guards, who passed it to me. I opened it up and looked inside. A simple chain- no! It was the salamander's harness, but... far more refined. The effort of what must have been thousands of hours of careful craftsmanship.

"Sir-"

"Put it on." I was trapped. Once again, I sized up the guards, considering my chances of escape.

"Domovoi." Heuther repeated, "If you place any value in the work you've done, and wish to see it continue, you will put that around your neck."

"But sir... why?"

"Same reason as you Dom, same reason as you. The same reason your first thought, when things started getting out of hand, was to kill me. Control."

"Control."

"It's always been about control, Domovoi. Now put it on. It shouldn't hurt."

I was cornered. Was I damning myself? Had I become a piece in my own game? Or maybe this was simply the only way forward. It would be so much easier if the choice was already made for me.

Perhaps it had. I didn't even notice that it was already around my neck. An unobtrusive pendant. It wouldn't be noticed alongside all of the other amulets, sigils and charms that adorned my body.

"That's good, my varlet. Now rest, and carry on as normal. Tomorrow, your work begins anew."

"Of course, my lord."[/spoiler]

---

By Secretariat

The Hour is Late

[spoiler]Atop beds of ice, the Cabal of Karkeron sleep, in the deepest citadel of their fortress. Though the years of a magus are many, the Cabal hoards them jealously against the Abyss; the hour is late, the years are long, and only the flickering lamps of Karkeron stand between the Weald and a new dark age.

But now, bells sound, and a steed bears its master to the House of Healing. A great hammock is prepared, and the patient laid upon it; Lord Goearn is fallen to a centaur's lance, and the magicks of the awakened will not suffice to heal the chief of the giants.

With grim expression the Cabal sets forth, down to the deepest caves, bearing before them the proof of their purpose. One of their number will have to be awakened before her time, the only one with the skill and knowledge to do what must be done. The spells are cast -- the blood warms, the heart begins to pump, and delicately, the brain and mind return. Thalia, master physicker to the Rozier, with her knowledge of the most ancient healing arts, has come to battle Death.

The ice-blindness is too much, and so others must see for her, and guide her hands. Poppy-milk is carefully mixed with spirit of ether, and the patient is put to sleep for a time. Great vats of water are boiled, and poultices prepared; the ruined flesh is cut away, and from the shields and swords of a regiment are forged a giant's cheekbones. The wounds are stitched and bandaged with clean linen; attendants set aside alcohol for fever, and soap for the hands of the healers. Lord Goearn survives, though his left eye is lost forever; when he recovers, he wears the epithet Cyclops with stubborn pride.

Thalia lingers for a time, to teach the eldest of the healers and consult where her wisdom is needed, but the years are heavy on her brow, and shortly thereafter she retires to the ice caverns, to be wakened in time of great need, or when great tidings approach.

Her long sleep will be dreamless.[/spoiler]

---

By Thomas Berubeg

Tales of the College: The Shi-Hur

[spoiler]The Shi-Hur is a powerful Beast unique in kind. Her form is that of an elongated woman with a mouth of full of sharp teeth and a head of red hair (Note: This is inaccurate, her hair appears to change to appeal to the closest individual), bare of all coverings. Instead of hands, she has, beginning at the wrists, long green claws, reminiscent of those of a praying mantis. She appears indestructible by any means physical, and the spells and cantrips traditionally used to repel Beasts are ineffective against her. In fact, the only reason we know of the means to bind her (Lines of Bone and Stone, Water and Earth, and Blood and Sinew across symbolic entranceways) is that she herself consented to give the college this information. The reason for her forthcoming attitude in this case is unknown, as she has not hesitated to consume most individuals who approach her. She was Discovered asleep in a glass coffin in one of the deeper halls of the college.

Encounter 17:

A Letter

Predicator Osgidd,

My name is Johan Thergud, Journeyman-Historian, and I would like to request permission for access to Shi-Hur. I spoke to Master Bethany and she gave her permission, assuming that you gave yours. I understand that the Shi-Hur has been bound by many curses and enchantments because of the danger she poses to the College, but believe that conversation with her would allow me to heavily advance my studies regarding the history of the College. I have studied her bindings extensively, as well as girded my mind against enchantment, and believe myself safe from her wiles.

I anxiously await your answer.

Your Servant,
Johan Thergud
Journeyman-Historian of the 7th level.

A Reply

Dear Journeyman Thergud,

I am willing to sign off on your visit to the Shi-Hur. However, please be advised that those who survive meeting her are far and few between. She has been bound behind circles of Stone and Bone, of Water and Earth, of Blood and Sinew. See to it that you do not disturb the lines, or you risk the entire college.

Predicator,
Amy Osgidd

Interview 1 Log

Man's Voice: This is Journeyman-Historian Thergud. I have set up this system of spells to record the conversation I intend to have with Shi-Hur. In case I do not survive the encounter, this recording should add to the school's wealth of knowledge about her.

I am approaching the door to her Sanctum now. [Creaking sound]

I am inside. I see a dark passageway at the end of the room, and in the middle of the room, stretching from wall to wall are, the lines binding her. Bone, Stone, Earth, Water, Blood, Sinew, all there, all intact. So long as I'm on this side, I should be safe... Wait, I think I hear something. The Smell of the Beast is getting stronger: Hot metal.[Soft footsteps]
Hello. My name is Johan Thergud. Are you Shi-Hur?

Woman's Voice: Hello Johan Thergud. Thank you for coming to see me. It's been so long since anyone has been down here. It gets awfully lonely.

Man's Voice: [Whispering] She is standing in the passageway, leaning against the wall... quite... seductively, actually. Hah. Cheap tricks.
[Loudly] You are Shi-Hur?

Woman's Voice: No, I am THE Shi-Hur. That is what I am, not who I am, though I am alone in being Shi-Hur. I have never had brothers or sisters or friends.

Man's Voice: Who are you, then?

Woman's Voice: [Laughter] Names have power, sweetings, especially for those plunged in the Anomic currents of the world. You should know that, Johan Thergud. Johan Thergud. What an attractive name.

[Long Pause]

Man's Voice: Alright, then. What can you tell me about what you are?

Woman's Voice: [Softly] Always these questions, they ask. What are you made of, what do you know? I am made of Magic and Flesh, wrought together by the unseen will of the world itself... and what I know? Both everything and nothing. I remember the lighting of the sun, the sundering of the Algid earth from the very fabric of the stars. I was there when the Kthonic lords rose up, and I was there when they fell... But, I have never felt the sun on my face, never seen any light but the torches in these halls. Johan, my sweet. Can you show me the sun?

Man's voice: [Whispering] Her words... are powerful. I can feel them tugging at me, I want to go, to break the circles.
[Loudly] You know I can't do that. You'd eat everyone in the college.

Woman's Voice: Perhaps I would. But you, my savior, would be safe.

Man's Voice: I have friends up there, they are my family.

Woman's Voice: I don't know what that means.

Man's Voice: You say you've never been outside the halls of this college? Where did you come from?

Woman's Voice: [Sigh] No, never. My first Memory is of an apprentice opening the womb in which I was born. Ohhhhh. The Hunger. I ate them all. And it helped for a while. I am not hungry now, for example.

Man's Voice: You say you were born here? Who... or what... are your parents?

Woman's Voice: None of my kind know. We've always been here, and yet are born. I don't understand that.

Man's Voice: Your kind? I thought you said you were alone?

Woman's Voice: The Free, those you call Free-Beasts, from the least of the whisps to the seven shining ones, all Free-Beasts come to this earth as I did.

Man's Voice: From glass coffins?

Woman's Voice: Don't be so literal. You're a scholar, you should know better. I mean... we are born, and yet have existed forever. Can you understand that? Forever... but to never have felt the wind of the rain? The agony of it all? I am Free! My love, please, help me.

[Long Pause]
[Sound of running, laughter, slamming door]

Man's Voice: [Panting] She almost had me. I'd stepped over Bone and my foot was over stone before I saw where I was. It's not safe for me to return, I know she'll get me.

Interview 2 Log:

Man's Voice: I'm going to try this again. I've prepared myself better, and will not let myself be trapped.

Woman's Voice: Johan Thergud! You came back! It's been a month and I've been awefully bored, waiting for you to come back

Man's Voice: I wasn't going to come back...

Woman's Voice: Yes you were. You always were coming back. And that's because we're meant for each other. The Moment I heard your name, I knew we were meant for each other.

Man's Voice: No, the last person who came down here, a hundred years ago, you ate.

Woman's Voice: [laughter] Amy Smithson? Yes, I ate her. She bored me. Asking me questions about how to destroy me. Don't you think that if I knew how to do that, I'd have done it? So, I seduced her... and she came to me. [Voice becomes breathy] You don't need to worry about that, though.

Man's Voice: That's... Inhuman!

Woman's Voice: Am I human?

Man's Voice: I suppose not. But still... If you want to see the stars and the sea, you need to make people trust you! they'll never let you out if they think you want to consume the world.

Woman's Voice: The world? No, I am not that greedy. But I will ponder your words. Leave me, now. Come back tomorrow.

Man's Voice: What?

Woman's Voice: [Coldly] Tomorrow.

[Closing Door]

Man's Voice: That was odd. I'll continue the interview tomorrow.

Interview 3 Log:

Man's Voice: Shi-Hur? are you there?

Woman's Voice: Yes, I am. And so are you, as you promised.

Man's Voice: DId you think on what I said? Don't eat people, and you'll be able to go free?

Woman's Voice: Yes, I heard. And I agree. I will not consume the flesh of Mankind.

Man's Voice: [Hesitant] Do you swear?

Woman's Voice: Upon the blood of my mother, I swear.

Man's Voice: [Clearly strained]... Mother...?

Woman's Voice: Yes, sweet thing. On my mother. Do you not trust me... my love?

Man's Voice: [Relieved] Yes, yes I do.

[Quick Footsteps]

[Sound of Kissing]
[Sound of Screaming]

Woman's Voice: Boring Fool. Asking me not to consume. That's like asking fire not to burn. [Tsk] and I had such hopes for poor Johan Thergud.[/spoiler]

Tales of the College: The Impossible Room

[spoiler]There is a room on the seventh level of the Nivian College that should not exist. There are no records of it's construction, no memory of when it appeared, but most importantly, there is no space for this room. Exacting measurements have been taken of the rooms on either side of the impossible room, and comparisons made with the floor plans of the college, which, even at the seventh level, are still very accurate, and all agree that the amount of space between the two is 4 inches, the exact width of the stone wall.

Nevertheless, If one is to open the unlabeled door between rooms 7.15 and 7.16, one will find one of three rooms: a fully stocked laboratory, an ornate library, or a lavish great hall. Each of these rooms is the same size, 40 feet by 100. If the room is occupied, a new entrance will find the same room as the other occupant(s), indicating that only one instance of these rooms is permitted by the enchantments controlling the room. Any foreign object left in the room will be found in other versions of the room, in as close to the same place as the different geography of the room will allow. Any object taken from the room and brought out will remain as it is until no longer being held or seen, at which point it will dissapear.

The origin of the room is unclear. Though it would seem to have been in existence for living memory, as even the oldest mages claim to remember it, records only speak of the room as having been around for ten years. Analysis of the experiments being run at that time indicates that there were none being performed on either space expansion nor mind alterations. This is problematic, as this indicates that the Anomalies coursing through the college may have their own effect on the experiments being run. Additionally, as noted by Arch-Master Ross of the department of the Philosophy of Anomes, that the room may not exist at all, but that there is a spell causing all in the college to believe the room exists. He is noted as bringing this problem up in his classes to first level apprentices, and "From the mouth of babes" as he likes to say later, mockingly, most agree that it makes no difference whether the room is real or not, so long as all believe it to be.[/spoiler]

On Nivian Origins

[spoiler]When the Zirrafim Host smote down the Khthonic lords, the screaming earth itself was rent asunder. Nivial, He of the Thousand Arms, Conductor of the Great Minor Chorus, Wise-Magi of the Kthonians, and Lieutenant to Apollyon-Kotet himself was torn from his Ice throne by Mammoun, Golden Helmed Captain of the Zirraf. Their struggle lasted for both an age and an hour, and boiled the frozen seas around them. Thrice The Thousand-handed one pinned his aggressor against the cold stone, and Thrice Mammoun's flaming blade clove through the arms holding him. Nine-hundred and ninety eight cleft arms stewed in the steaming brine, and finally Mammoun turned the tide, flipping the Kthonian over and pressing his gasping maw under the waves until even the once mighty lord could not will his life on. Raising the body of his fallen foe once in triumph, The Zirraf's burning sword consumed the fallen in a great conflageration, till nothing remained of the one who had held nearly a quarter of the Algid Earth in his grasp, nothing but a whispered echo in the winds above the ocean, a murmur of ancient strife in the crash of the waves.

Onyx haired Mammoun, Glancing about him at the devastation wrought by the fallen wise-man, wrought by their righteous struggle, swore upon the very foundations of the earth never to speak to any of the site of the struggle. He cast the broken Ice throne deep into a chasm of the living earth, and with it his fallen foe's raging army. With the force born of his golden purpose, Mammoun smote the Chasm closed, so that none may ever find it.

An age passed, and not once did he return to the location of the titanic struggle. Even when The Shining Captain finished his work and smote down the Nivias Rozier, forsaking the Algid Earth upon the death of his General, he refused to give his fallen foe undeserved respect in memory.

The Great Magician Nale, though wise and knowledgeable of many secrets and stories, had never heard that of the battle between his fallen master's father and his slayer. And so, when he fled the Mage-strife with his followers and led them far north, to the broken shores of the sea, he knew not the import of the location. He and many of the followers of Nale heard the echo in the wind and the sorrow in the crash of the waves, and understood the power of this place. Delving deep into the skin of the earth, they quarried stone to raise the great city of Ath, it's shining towers of white marble girded with seven strong walls.

And, when the most talented among them found themselves drawn to the tunnels from which the stone had been drawn, it seemed only natural to furnish them, to use them as a place within which to study their sacred art. The rough hewn corridors were polished by thousands of steps of use, and as the ranks of the Magi grew, so did the lengths of the tunnels. Deeper and deeper, wending down, the Nivian college was formed. those with talent travelled the world over to learn of the secrets locked within the ever shifting passageways. Rumor tells of what wonders are hidden in it's deepest recesses, what horrors lurk in the darkest aisles of the library, what Kthonian artifices are secreted in locked vaults. Some even speak of darker things, Mages losing themselves the the catacombs for what to them is a day and seventy years to the rest of the college, adventurous students disappearing with nothing to be heard of them but an echo of despair, bound to a shadowy place.[/spoiler]

---

By Morrow

Bird's Beady Eyes

[spoiler]The crow circled far over the smouldering fires of the encampments, the rising dust of the booted feet. Across the river lay Amasque, the Red City, sprawling and majestic, but here the ground had been cleared and trampled flat under thousands of men. Day on day they marched and drilled and the crow watched, counted the tents and officer plumes as they spread across what was jokingly called the Field of Beauty.

Its eyes glowed with a soft blue light that let it see more than any other crow. The men of the Amasquani merged together into companies, by the hundreds, and these companies then merged together into hosts, which moved as one. Until, that is, horns sounded and they split again into different courses, a ballet that could only be truly appreciated by a bird. Like pieces on some great chess board, moving under the commands of a single master player.

It flew lower, above the great tents where the officers gathered and made plans. There were many, organized in a structure that was hard to pick out. But, of the many, there were three that mattered. An aging man, Amasquani, who moved with a quiet confidence and respect among the soldiers. And another, also Phoadrim, but in the prime of his life and a head taller than the others, who drew attention wherever he passed. And a third, a little man, grim and dark from up the river Blackest, with a single eye. It passed closer as this third general exited the tent, and circled above him.

He looked up then, and watched the crow just as the crow watched him. There was a moment of understanding, and behind the blank gaze of the crow, the mind that guided it shivered.

But the moment passed, and the one-eyed Baelning went back inside.

Only to emerge a moment later with a bow and arrow, which he nocked and fired swiftly at the crow and struck it from the sky.

-------------

Abibaal woke up from the trance with a start, his mind flashing from the open, humid air of Amasque to the smell of swirling incense. He shook from the after-effects of the crow's violent death, and it took a moment to pass. When it was done he stood and walked across his chambers to throw open the windows.

As he looked across Bejewelled Sensinsal, he came to a decision. For all its wealth, its pleasures, its arcane secrets, it was not home. "I have lingered here long enough. Amasque calls once more."

But to go south, the warlock knew he must first go north.[/spoiler]

[TheMeanestGuest]

Selections, Continued

---

By Seon

A Thief's Repose

[spoiler]The initiate is lead into a darkened room in the center of the temple, where there is a room containing a pool surrounded by white marble pillars. Murals depicting the rise of the Shuddering Palace and the founding of the Empire cover every inch of wall. The most prominent motif that permeates throughout the artwork is that of motherhood, namely, the Empress's role as both the mother of the Shuddering Palace and, in some sense, mother of every citizen in the Iridescent Empire. The initiate is then blindfolded made to sit in the pool. The witch, or to use the term that Sensileans prefer, the Priestess, then leads the initiate through several lessons.

The Priestess begins: "My child, the powers of observation is one of the most important lessons that I will teach you. We, who practice the Hidden Arts, must stand against all threats posed against the Empress and all her children. To fight against these threats, we must know of these threats."

"But I do not understand," the initiate replies. "How will sitting in an empty room with a blindfold over my eyes improve my powers of observation?"

The Priestess lets out a sigh. "This is no mere empty room, child. It is at the heart of the Temple of the Holy Mother, which is itself at the heart of the holiest city. So listen. Listen closely with your ears and your heart, and tell me all that is that you hear."

The initiate frowns in concentration. "I... I can hear heartbeats," she finally says.

"Very good," the Priestess replies, nodding. "Tell me more."

"I hear the heartbeats of many men and women in the city, beating in unison with the Shuddering Palace. The Empire is united in love and harmony. I hear the excited chatters of merchants in the forum, the symbol of the Empire's prosperity. I hear the music that sings praise to the Empress. It is... beautiful..."

The Priestess shakes her head, disappointed. "I said the same thing as you did when I was in the pool, child. I lied, just as you lied. In the future, be unafraid to tell me that you hear nothing. Also, you must explain to me how you heard all those things while failing to notice the scribbling noise made by that spy's pen behind the pillar." said the Priestess. Jol, the Master Anthropologist of the Nivian College, looked down on his notes and frowned. Something was terribly wrong. The realization hit him like a four horse chariot and he rose up from his hiding spot with a start- too late. He was staring into the grinning face of the Priestess. In her hand was an ornate silver knife, bejeweled with pieces of the Shuddering Palace. He ducked and rolled out of the way of the expected slash and ended up running straight into the initiate who had, by this time, clambered out of the pool after removing the blindfold. Unlike the Priestess, the Initiate was well-built, drenched, and most importantly of all, not at all smiling.

The Priestess let out a cackle. "A scholar of Nivia, so far from the safety of your college? What is your name and for what purpose have you wandered into this temple? Do you desire the sanctity of the Holy Mother?"

"I...err..."

"Should I call the guards?" the Initiate said, her voice frigid; the tone of annoyance clear.

"No, no, this is more amusing this way," the Priestess mused. "Go on, answer the question and we may decide not to kill you or something else depending on my whims."

The scholar didn't even dwell on considering what that 'something' was. "I am Jol of Athica, on a mission to learn about the culture and customs of the Iridescent Empire. I was trying to learn more about the wi- Cult of the Holy Mother. I did not intend on doing anything to-"

"I've heard enough," said the grinning Priestess. "And have decided upon your punishment."

Jol gulped. "And...?"

The Priestess's eyes widened in glee "First, you shall be str-"

Halt. The grin vanished from the Priestess's face in a second. Both her and the initiate seemed as if they had no choice but to comply as they began to back away from Jol. For his part, Jol discovered that he could no longer reach the Step-Through spell charm that he had prepared for just such an occasion.

For a century Mother stayed within the chambers of my heart, content and pleased. A warmth fell over my soul and stillness in my flesh.

A few grim-faced guards entered the chamber with swords drawn. The door behind them shut without anyone touching it.

Then did she wake and see the danger written in the stars, the tension and fear in the air. Then did I wake and see and hear the old tyrants circle to destroy my Lady, my queen.

Jol grimaced in concentration. Why couldn't he reach the charm? If he could just reach the charm, he could step through. Disappear away from this place.

A darkness will soon fall over my heart, an emptiness over my soul. She shall take the bird and leave behind the throne room. She desires to see what the stars warned of with her own eyes. I cannot stop her.

You too must see this horror. Your superiors may be aware of the stars' warnings too, but they do not understand with their heart nor their eyes. You shall.

The guards began to advance. Jol let out a cry of relief as his hands finally broke through the psychic hold and grasped the charm. He shouted in victory as he raised aloft the small triangular crystallized spell.

He leapt.

His fit of laughter died out as he failed to recognize his surroundings. Instead of the familiar stone walls of his inn, the walls and floor tiles of this structure was made out of solid blocks of blue crystals. A large bed, also made of crystals and actually carved into the floor, stood at the center of the room. A strange sense of warmth from unseen sources permeated the room. Other than the crystals, however, there were no decorations in the room. The bed was just a bed, lacking any kind of ornamentation that is so common in Sensealean art. The walls lacked any kind of paintings or murals. By a large crystalline window were a bookcase, table, and a chair. A lone figure of a woman sat on the chair, sipping on a small glass full of a mysterious liquid.

"Where... where am I?" Jol muttered. "How did you redire-"

The woman picked up a small charm that lay on the table and waved it towards Jol. Jol recognized it as the Destination half of the Step Through charm, which he had hidden in his inn. "Oh," he said. The woman turned to face Jol, a small hint of a smile upon the mouth, a mask concealing everything else.

Jol paled as he recognized the the Empress of Sensinsal.[/spoiler]

Consider Durlickt

[spoiler]A philosopher I knew, whose name I can no longer recall, remarked that the soul is immortal. If that is the case, then death is the most insignificant thing that can happen to a human being. If a soul can live on infinitely without the effects of time, then the amount of time that one lives, no matter how extended it may be, is a mere moment in time. I said that death lasts only a second, but that our soul was without end. The night was dark and the wind bit harshly into our flesh. The fire was but an ember upon charcoal. A bard, whom I suspected had never played the lyre before, continued wailing his harsh songs into the night. I told you that we should just kill ourselves then and to continue our discussions of metaphysics afterwards without the racket and distractions.

But then, I suppose, you reconsidered.

You know, I can no longer remember whether or not we committed suicide then.

.......................................................................................................................................................................................

When the Masked Empress first came to the shores of the Fugue Sea, carrying a crystal seed of the nascent palace in her bosom, not all came to heed her words. There were many that battled against her new ecstatic followers, waging war against the tall walls of the city of Sensinsal. Durlickt was one such man whose statue now stands upon the walls of Sensinsal to this day.

His story is similar to many man who picked up swords and spears to bring war against the Empress in her Shuddering Palace. He deserted his own army to fight for the sake of the Empress and the City. He comes from the grasslands and forests, filled with wild boars and game, and comes before the city. Here, he sees things that he has never seen before. Crystal spires and white arches made of the Palace's bones. Tiered gardens around the spires and temples bearing faces he had never seen before. Strange and dancing lights in the sky and from the glass windows of city's arcologies. Regular open spaces and columns by the side of roads.

None of these things strike him as being beautiful. A flower is beautiful. A young maiden is beautiful. Simple beauty does not convince a warrior to fight against everything that he had previously believed to be just and righteous. He is instead struck as we would be struck if we had encountered the old machines whose purpose and materials still puzzle us today. He saw the city's architecture and art and sensed an immortal intelligence at work. Perhaps a single brick from the city was enough. Perhaps it was enough when he surveyed the city that he sought to conquer from atop a hill. Nevertheless, he was suddenly blinded by the incomprehensible works of the city, and was renewed at that same moment. He fought for the sake of a woman who he had never seen in his life and died upon that wall.

Durlickt is not a traitor. Traitors do not get the reverence and respect offered to him as he is given now today. Eventually, his brethren, who heaped blame upon the turncoat, did as he had done and became Sensileans, growing old in the city that they had once tried to destroy.

This tale moved me greatly, but I could not help but recall hearing another story that was of very similar nature. I sought it out in my memories and found it in one of my grandfather's tales. He was a captain in the army, patrolling the newly conquered lands to the north when he discovered a young woman. The locals claimed that she was one of the wildlings, who, unlike the others, sometimes ventured closer to the villages to trade for trinkets. My grandfather was intrigued and sought her out.

Surprisingly, she responded in halting Sensilean tongue. She claimed that she was a daughter of a Sensilean farmer, who foolishly sought new lands of his own in the north. He was killed by the wildling native and she was taken captive, becoming the wife of a minor chieftain. The tales that she wove, of animal hide tends and fire fueled by dung, and celebrations with strange meat grilled over stranger viscera, gave glimpses of the savagery that this Sensilean had fallen into after her capture by the wildlings.

Furious, the captain swore that he would return her to her homeland and that he will destroy the wildlings tribes. She stopped him, saying that she was perfectly content and happy with her station in life.

My grandfather would die shortly afterwards in an unrelated battle between some brigands. Nearly a hundred years lie between the first story and the second. The figure of the barbarian who embraced Sensinsal and the figure of a captive maiden, who embraced barbarism may seem different, even contradictory. But they were both transported to where they were by an impulse, an impulse that was deeper than reason. Both embraced an impulse that they would not have been able to explain. It could be that I have merely told you the same story twice. Perhaps, in the eyes of the Universe, the obverse and the reverse of the coin is the same.[/spoiler]

Two Years, Too Late

[spoiler]We said our goodbyes and we parted ways in the crowded streets of Sensinsal. Soon, you turned around and waved goodbye across a river of people and horses. It was a bright day on no particular afternoon. How was I to know that this was the river of the dead, from which there is no return?

Then we lost sight of each other. A month later, you were dead. I look back upon this memory now and think it false. How can such a tremendous farewell be expressed by such a trivial of partings? Surely there was an infinite separation between us that day, somehow.

Last night, I did not go out into the city after dinner. I stayed in my home and began rereading the works of old philosophers. I read that the soul can flee when the flesh dies. I'm not sure whether the truth lies in the ominous interpretation or in the innocent farewell that we exchanged that day.
Because if the soul does not die, we are right to lay no stress in our good-byes.

To say good bye is to deny separation. It says 'today we play at going our own ways, but we shall see each other again tomorrow.' Men invented farewells because they knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.

Upon the corner of the street that we exchanged our farewells, I saw a new advertisement plastered upon the bonewalls of the city, for a new musical performance or such. I knelt before the sign as onlookers walked by without a glance and I grieved as I laid out the contents of my pockets before me. A wallet. A locket. A ring. A letter, never sent. These reflections brings me to the door of your house. I go inside. You are still there. We exchange conventional, cordial words, and I give you the letter. Unless I'm mistaken, you did not dislike me, and you'd liked to have some of my words. That never happened. You are dead, and the letter was never delivered. But this time, you tear open the envelope and read a line or two approvingly, perhaps because you have been expecting those words for a while. Perhaps because the halting poetry in the letter is less important than the purpose.

You open your mouth to respond and at this point my dream begins to fade away, like water in water. The river that flows past me is Via Rolanda, not the river of the dead. And you, my dear, you killed yourself two years ago. My vanity and nostalgia have crafted this scene, which is impossible. Maybe so. Maybe I will be dead tomorrow and our times will commingle and chronology will melt away into an orb of symbols. And perhaps it will be true to say that this letter have been sent and you have accepted it. Then perhaps, you can tell me what the answer is.[/spoiler]

[TheMeanestGuest]

It has been brought to my attention that it might not be entirely clear how to play this game. The answer is quite simple: You write! You tell me what you want to do and how you want to do it - and why, and with who, etc. Stories can also contribute in this regard, though I will note they are not necessary. You can be just as successful without writing stories, but I do appreciate them when I receive them.

I am going to post a set of orders that I wrote for a different game below. Though not in the same genre as Our Terrible Purpose, the game in question was nevertheless one of its major influences. They are somewhat long, and I do not expect this kind of length or detail from my own players - though I certainly wouldn't object to it. The game in question (End of Empires) used money as a means of accomplishing goals, where I have inserted sums of money below, you would insert a tag. This is essentially just demonstrating to me what level of effort your faction is exerting in a given instance.

[spoiler=Republic of the Daharai Order Set, Turn 30]The Eastern Strategy

Having taken up the mantle, Arasos Anthon-Solien is determined to see the power of the Republic utterly eclipse that of its rivals, and likewise see the house of Anthon-Solien rise to new heights. Our dominion in the east is crucial to this purpose.

Circle and Square

1. Having been moved by the impassioned speech of Sister Eadres Esion, the Conclave of the Masters, the Exarch, and the Red Chamber shall act in concert to see new policy implemented regarding the Cultists and the Republic's eastern possessions. Acknowledging that these territories have been left in a state of languor due to the strain placed by their management on the Order of the Republic, it shall be decreed that Palanth, Tiratas, Leun and the Hanoman coast of Auona shall henceforth be administered by the Order of the Circle and the Square. A minor order from the Lesser Tesach archipelago, they shall be elevated to the status of major order, and granted funding sufficient to the purpose to establish themselves in the city and countryside of Leun. The other listed territories shall be gradually ceded to them as their capabilities increase. The Hierarch-Chancellor Seda Noliot, personal friend of the Exarch, shall be sent with entourage to Leun to oversee and manage this expansion and integration.

A stronghold shall be built for their Order from Leun's Grand Arena. The property is to be ceded to them, and funding allocated that the structure be put to purpose as fortress, monastery, and headquarters. The resulting castle shall be known as Naronistras. The arches of the arena are to be walled over, and a strong gatehouse with steel sheeted doors of heavy wood shall be installed on the concourse before the arena. The gate is to be flanked by two towers extending out of the structure, providing enfilading fire on any attempt made against the gate. A cistern shall be sunk beneath the fortress to guard against the perils of siege. The interior tiers of seating will be built up on the inner side so that the resulting fortress encircles the old arena floor, the roof embattled with bastions and parapets. Naronistras will possess residential space, administrative offices, storehouses, a barracks, a smithy, training halls and additionally all the necessary accouterments of a functioning monastery. A temple is to be built within Naronistras, and beautified with frescoes and ornament. The defining feature of the structure will be its great atrium, which was once the arena floor. An ornamental garden with ponds and fountains shall be made there, with a clutch of banyan trees planted at the centre. The atrium garden shall serve as a place of contemplation and reflection for the brothers and sisters of the Circle and the Square.

The city wall of Leun is to be repaired and strengthened to show that the Republic protects all of its citizens, and not only the Daharai.

2. The mandate of this new Order shall be the good governance of the east, the strengthening of Daharai rule, and the Illumination and conversion of Eastern Aitahists to Indagahor. As Sister Esion said, the Aitahists shall be invited into the temple. Foremost among the measures intended to accomplish this purpose shall be the canonical declaration of Eri of Reppaba - one of the foremost figures in Eastern Aitahism - as an embodiment of the indor of compassion, and therefor reverence of her and her deeds shall henceforth be allowed in this capacity within Indagahor. This measure shall also be taken literally, where before Aitahists were forbidden from entering Indagahori places of worship and contemplation they shall now be allowed to, so long as they behave in orderly and respectful fashion.

The Circle and the Square will likewise restore the Indagahori temples in Leun, and shall proselytize our faith throughout the city, the towns, and the countryside. The people shall be reminded of the bounty of Enlightenment, and the grace of Indagahor. The sutras and positions of Arasos, Chitan, Heasah and Sadar shall be read aloud in markets and public squares - as well as the position of Sister Esion - and the people so taught of the goodness of our religion. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, those Cultists who should convert will naturally be exempted from the significant taxes levied on Aitahist households by the Republic.

It is important that this welcoming happens on the terms of the Republic, and the prescriptions against the establishment of new Aitahists churches or public proselytization of Aitahism are to be enforced. Foreign powers will not interfere in this process, and individuals determined to have hierarchical associations with foreign churches are to be expelled from the country. Apostasy from Indagahor remains a criminal act punishable by forfeiture of property, corporal punishment, exile, or death - as determined by the presiding authority.

The Textile Trade

3. The Republic must make greater leverage of its critical position on the southern route. We have the very real potential to effectively control the entire supply of cotton and linen to the cradle and ports further afield, particularly considering we already control the greater majority of it in any case. In conjunction with solidifying our position in Leun, the components of our strategy are outlined below.

i. An arrangement has been reached with the King of Alar whereby the Daharai shall operate a port quarter within the coastal city of Ateron. We shall present the King of Alar with a gift of silver [1000] that he might see to the proper administration and security of his realm, and we shall invite him to allow his temples to participate in the Conclave of the Masters. We will additionally offer him Daharai advisers, and a guarantee of protection against his neighbours. Our port in Ateron will strengthen his own rule, and lengthen the tendrils of our influence. It shall serve as a critical stop on our routes to Acaya, allowing our merchantmen and galeoai to avoid foreign harbour fees, and in turn operate more profitable runs, allowing them to take a greater share of Acayan goods. The quarter shall be held in common by the Republic, and is to be freely open to all ships flying flags of the Orders, the iendeosai, or the Great Families. Ships of Alar are likewise exempted from our fees. An edrin will be appointed by the Exarch for the administration of the port in Ateron, and funding provided for the construction of facilities and the expansion of infrastructure. We shall bring trade to Alar, and Alar shall bring trade to us. We shall additionally send brothers and sisters of various orders to use this quarter as a base of operations for the Illumination of the Aitahists of Alar.

ii. Similarly, we have reached an agreement with the Acayan Assembly to lease a quarter of the port of Gade for a period of ten years in exchange for a yearly tithe of silver [150 x 10]. An edrin loyal to the Anthon-Soliens will be appointed, and funds provided for expansion or construction of necessary facilities. We have received a guarantee of functional extraterritoriality from the Acayans, as well as exemptions from most taxes and all fees and tariffs, and we will make use of these advantages. We sit at the supply of Acayan cotton itself at Gade, and in conjunction with our Leunan fields we are in a great position to control the entire flow. Additionally, brothers and sisters shall use this quarter as a base from which to Illuminate. They are to make contacts in and strengthen bonds with the Gadian temples, and cooperate to spread the faith in Gadia and throughout the Centa river valley.

iii. Critically, Ateron and Gade sit on opposite sides of Asardias, rendering its position as a trading hub precarious. In turn, we will increase fees on Parthecan merchants hauling cotton or wool who dock at our ports, and we will encourage Farea to do the same. We will slowly choke the Parthecans out of the textile game, eliminating our competition on the southern seas.

Domestic Concerns

The Accounting

1. The Exarch shall exclaim before the Red Chamber that the Republic's rolls and schemes of tithe and taxation are confused, out of date, and in many cases overly complex. He shall propose that his governors, the Predai, institute a wide-ranging census to collect accurate and current information on the assets, expenses, and obligations of all parties signatory to the Compact of Spitos, and the private citizens of the Republic. The Red Chamber shall assent, providing funding [8000] for this worthwhile endeavour, and the Exarch's office and his Predai shall set to their work.

The Accounting, as it shall be known, shall proceed from west to east. Beginning in Treha, Ormoment and Epichirisi, eventually progressing its way to Leun and the furthest reach of Daharai Auona. The iendeosai shall be required to provide full rolls of their citizens and their properties, and the Orders shall be required to provide full rolls of their obligates, assets, and tenants. Harbour fees and tariffs will additionally fall under scrutiny. The Predai shall be entitled to access to any of these records, as well as those of port officials and edrin. Aitahist Churches and Indagahori temples shall be required to account their incomes and expenses, and the Churches shall be required to organize the receipt of accurate information regarding the assets of their adherents. The collected information is to be collated by the bureaucracy of the Predai and the Exarch, and the information used to reassess the phodron, the thondron, the taxes on Aitahist churches and households, and any other tax or tithe.

Agents shall be dispatched to ensure the information received is accurate, and punishment for the obstruction or deception of these agents or their masters shall be punished severely.

Epichirisi

2.The Exarch has often said of Epichirisi that it is the loveliest city in the world, and he shall strive to see that the Red Chamber and the iendeos make it so.

i. Though grand, the Eandrine Walls of the Inner City were built three centuries ago, and are not so impressive as once they were. Thorough work shall begin to repair weathering and damage that they have suffered that has evaded repair over the years, attentively going over every inch of the fortifications. The height of the walls is to be increased by some meters at those areas most easily assailed, and the towers refashioned circularly or with deflecting angles to better resist the bombardment of modern siege machines. A substantial sum of silver [5000] is to be devoted to this project.

ii. The city shall be beautified, and throughout the capital and the iendeos islands of greenery and parkland shall be installed for the enjoyment of the populace. Flowers and trees shall be planted about well kept plazas, and fountains placed to provide more sites of access to clean water, as well as for aesthetic and soothing affect. The Civil Chamber of Epichirisi has never turned down Republic money, and the Red Chamber is certain they will cooperate. A substantial sum of silver is to be devoted [5000] to the beautification of the city.

iii. As the city has expanded over the years, its order and cleanliness have not kept pace. The Red Chamber shall dedicate [10000] to see a comprehensive system of sewers and gutters installed throughout Epichirisi so that the waste of the city should not build up in its streets. Through this measure the populace shall be healthier, happier, more productive, and less inclined to riot against the authorities.

iv. The private army of the Anthon-Soliens, the Regiment of Tythians, has long been a bone of contention with the Red Chamber, falling outside the Compact of Spitos as it does. The Exarch and his opponents in the Red Chamber shall squabble, and eventually a carefully worded compromise shall be reached. Henceforth the Tythians shall be required to swear an oath to uphold the peace of the Red Chamber, in addition to their oath to the House of Anthon-Solien. The Anthon-Soliens shall remain in control of the regiment just as they always have, but they shall be required to render its services to the Republic in the event of war, strife, or disaster. The Red Chamber shall assent to foot the bill [2500] for the construction of a new barracks for the Regiment of Tythians on the slopes of the Charitine hill, that they should be better organized and prepared to render such service when the time should come.

The Auonan Coastal Road

3. To better cement its control of Auona, and for the benefit of its people, the Red Chamber shall initiate a roadlaying project as was once done on Spitos. A wide and level stone-surfaced road is to be built from Cynta to Sarne, travelling along the coast of Auona up through Tars and Cheidia. This road shall better bind Daharai Auona together, and so bind it to the Republic. It will serve as a conducive to development and trade, and will allow for the quick movement of Daharai forces on land between these locations in the event of unrest or war.

The Pillar of Leun

4. Leun was once among the greatest cities of the east, and it is yet worthy of respect. Our efforts to convert the people of that land to Indagahor would be well served if a powerful symbol of the grace of our religion should be made in that city, so that the people should be awed to look upon it, and so they should know by a single glance that our faith is the truest.

Taking cues from the Pillar of Truth and the Pillar of Treha, that of Leun shall be a great and soaring structure. Though not quite so large in its proportion as these two others, its dome nonetheless rises to a height of thirty-five meters. The dome is to be tiled in red granite, with three large and equidistant triangles in brass panel emblazoned on its surface. The structure entire clad in shining white travertine, a great hall stretches out from the seaward face of the dome, fronted with three towers capped in brass panel and rising to forty meters, varnished teak doors between them. The great hall is vaulted and lined with arched windows, as is the Pillar's dome, enhancing the sense of space, and providing an abundance of light. The walls of the hall and the dome are to be bedecked with colourful frescoes of the deeds of the indori, prominent among them those of Eri of Reppaba in her guise as the indor of compassion. A maze shall be laid out on the floor of the dome in tiles of bright blue ceramic, contrasting with the polished white travertine floor. Adherents shall learn peace and serenity as they excercise Mindfulness in the search for the centre.

A basic plan of the Pillar of Leun: http://i.imgur.com/GApzMpn.png

Torcias Neros

5. Having published his comprehensive and illustrated guide to human anatomy - The Body of Man - and earned reluctant praise from the Masters, the academy surgeon Torcias Neros shall return to the lecture with renewed vigour to instruct his Daharai pupils. His instructions shall proceed ordinarily enough, until one day one of his students nearly bites off his own tongue. It seems the student, Ario of Kalos, possessed the peculiar habit of chewing cloves. His tongue sutured by the able surgeon and his life saved, Ario confessed in embarrassed fashion that he enjoyed the numbing sensation the cloves imparted, though he was quite clear that he had never before lost track of his tongue in such disastrous fashion.

Much to the consternation of the Academy Masters, Torcias was irrepressibly intrigued, and once again abandoned the classroom for his researches. Taking Ario as his assistant, he began to study the properties of cloves, chewing a considerable quantity himself, and carefully examining the buds as he manipulated them. Through his assistant's earlier misfortune, Torcias was convinced that the clove could be used to great effect in dental surgery, sparing the patient considerable pain, if only he could find its essence. Through many long hours of study he determined that a secretion of the bud was responsible for this numbing effect, though was perplexed as to how he should gain a useable quantity of the substance.

First he attempted grinding a quantity of the buds by hand in mortar and pestle, but the powder was dry and entirely ineffective for the purpose. He proceeded to crushing the cloves with a screw press, but abandoned the method after breaking several of the bones in his assistant's left hand. The result was unsatisfactory in any case. He then thought that he might conduce the essence out by heat, and boiled a linen satchel of the powder in a cauldron. While the water certainly tasted of cloves, Torcias knew immediately the essence had been diluted too strongly to be of use. He suspended a smaller satchel of ground clove in a jar of linseed oil as he boiled it, reasoning the oil would trap the essence. But again he was disappointed. Forgetting the jar entirely, he went on to several increasingly bizarre attempts resulting in various burns and escalating injuries to his assistant. Weeks later, Ario found the jar and idly began tasting the linseed oil. Much to his delight, his mouth soon numbed, and he reported this happily to his master. Equally delighted, Torcias surmised that the essence of clove took time to express itself in the oil.

While the concoction has been put to effect in treating minor wounds and to aid in the extraction of rotted teeth, Torcias continues his search for a method by which he should extract true essence, and dreams that he might so obtain the purest form of any number of substances.

A Journey to the West

1. The Daharai know that there is money to be made in the west, and indeed, trade in the ports of the Kothari Exatai is profitable. But the true prize lies further on. Hearing of the efforts of the Red Chamber in the east, the Blue Order and the Anthon-Solien merchant company have obtained a lease on a port quarter in the city of Putra from the Shuhar Emperor [100 x 10], and have secured Republic funding for the venture and its necessary facilities. In contrast to the other quarters, the goals of the Daharai in Shuhar are purely mercantile.

Traders from Tsutongmerang bring the goods of the west to Putra, and in turn we trade them the goods of the east. No doubt they have acquired a taste for our textiles and spices through the Helsians and the Kothari, but we can provide them in greater quantities and at more attractive prices. The Blues and the Anthon-Soliens shall use this advantage to break into western trade. Impressed by the revenues of the venture and the share received through the phodron, the Red Chamber shall subsidize the Blues in their effort to assemble a great trading fleet, gifting them a considerable quantity of silver [2000] in return for a guaranteed share of the profits. Once assembled the fleet shall sail laden with spices, linens, cotton, indigo and all the goods of the east bound for Tsutongmerang and ports of call further on, in the domain of the fabled Troan Emperors.

Foreign Concerns and Contingencies

The Daharai shall maintain good relations with the Leunan successors, and shall attempt to keep each afraid of the other's ambitions (save Alar, who we should embrace as friend with fewer conditions), so that they must appeal to the Daharai for protection. Our merchants and orders shall continue to make themselves increasingly indispensable to the economies of these countries, and so we shall maintain our eastern dominion.

If any state should attack one of its neighbours, the Daharai will respond overwhelmingly and with force, subjecting it to the control and administration (ostensibly temporary) of the Republic. The Red Chamber is particularly wary of Bryha and Serkos - the former due to its modicum of agency, and the latter its reputation - if either should stir up trouble, the Daharai will stir trouble right back in their direction. If ships from Serkos should be proven to engage in piracy against Daharai vessels (including Naelsian Daharai) the city shall be blockaded by a Daharai fleet, and a demand sent that they surrender every ship in port. If Serkos were to refuse this request, we would besiege the city with intent to conquer it.

The Daharai consider Helsia, the Aortai Republic, Farea and Acaya allies, and if one among these states were attacked we would send an expeditionary force to assist in its defence.

Treasury funds may be used for military purpose as necessary, as can debt spending. The Red Chamber trusts in the competence of its Prelate-Generals, and their determination of the necessary application of force for defensive action.

As always, never trust a Parthecan.[/spoiler]  

I hope this is at least somewhat helpful.

[Rose-of-Vellum]

TMG,

Thanks for the helpful IRC chat. I've been pondering our discussion and proposed ideas. I've settled on Elyx, and am drafting up that nation's backstory and proposed tags.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Random scribblings. The first appendix that will actually contain better and more relevant material I expect to be done in July. Update four prospectively in September, depending on player requirements.

-----

The Rozier came to the town of Dray, and on his head he wore a crown of flames. "You shall make yourselves free!" he cried to the people, his voice ringing with joy. The men and women of Dray turned to him then, and they favoured him with the ire of their stares. They misliked his words, and so they shouted and they shook their fists and they chased him off. He slept that night beneath a mountain, and he dreamed of a time before hunger. The next morning the Rozier returned to Dray, and on his head he wore a coronet of iron. "You shall make yourselves free!" he thundered, his shoulders quaking with rage. But the men and women of Dray felt no fear of him, and they took up their arms against him. With fire and shot they assailed him, and so they chased him off. That night the Rozier slept in the soft bows of a young tree, and he dreamed of heart threads and narrow places in the sky. Morning came, and so the Rozier came again to Dray. He wore empty air upon his brow. "You shall make yourselves free," he said a third time. His voice was dark and oily and it was dreadful to hear. The people could not now deny him, and so they did as they were bade.

-----

In the dusty northern hills of Enn is the tower Tebeth, a great monolith of fused yellow glass and shining dry stone. This monument upon the orb of Kothon contends among its peers for the greatest esteem and regard among the petty followers of the Rozier, being as it is the site of his first felling. They say he lay there dying as the tower was assailed by two armies sent from the Golden City to destroy him. His throat had been torn out by the zirraf Hethan's blade, and his physikers and his automatices attended him, trying vainly with all their art and all their skill to save their lord's mortal form.

They had fought a long and grueling campaign in that desert country, but they had driven the great centaur herds before them, and they had sacked the armed city of Esret, sat at a slow and winding bend of the river Gram. The Rozierey had made quarters for the season, and Nivias the Rozier considered all his myriad plots and plans and strategies to destroy the city Dis. The zirrafim arrived very suddenly in the country and commenced their attack on the Rozier and his army. After ten days of battle the Rozierey made their retreat to Tebeth, their last stronghold on that edge of the sea. They carried the Rozier amidst them and guarded him closely, for he was gravely wounded. The speed and skill of the zirraf Hethan had overwhelmed him, and he fell to his knees in crimson-soaked clothes.

His generals had been summoned to his side with all haste, but the hour of their arrival was uncertain. The soldiers of the Rozierey manned their guns and held fast against the bombardment. The scuttling meccali arrived and with their sharpened and heated claws they cut the gates apart and rushed within. They were held at bay for a night by the blood and valour of the soldiers there, with vicious and desperate fighting in each chamber and hallway. Nevertheless the Rozier died of his wounds, his soul departing, his surgeons dumb and deaf with despair. The footman Draud stood at the last door to defend his master's body, and bedecked in black armour and grief he fought Hethan for the passing of an hour. They say the zirraf tore the door asunder, and the few gathered there about his body were all silent, each prepared to die. But in that moment the Rozier returned – some report in new form, others that he stood in the body of another man who had lain dying of his wounds. Having retrieved or retained some deadly skill from beyond that veil he slaughtered the meccali and drove the zirrafim away.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Edit: See below.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Appendix One: Meet the Cold Hard Ground

- the witch, Abibaal: "I have lingered here long enough." -

The Flight of the Razmid

In the jagged and towering shadow of broken Cortice lay the factory-forge of Beldren, dug up from the earth's embrace by Nivias himself. Its foundries had been lit without pause for decades, but never before had they been stoked so high. The Rozierey worked at a frantic pace as the plasmatic light of the aracs above them slowly faded beneath the bombardment. Shells, spells and lances clattered down; the defiant roar of the aracs was near deafening. The men and women of Rozierey scurried and clambered about a tall metal hulk on hanging scaffolds and girding chains. A thousand angry ants with sparking torches, it seemed as if they had caged a god and set to some cruel and cutting torture, prising it apart and then back together again in strange ways. The Cat's Eye hung above in the night sky, drifting amidst the moontears, glowering down with its scouring light.

The work done here was urgent and needful, but so too was all the work of Rozierey, and the forces of that cause were spread thinly across the breadth of Kothon. But to Beldren Heosë had dispatched her greatest general, for she had gleaned secret knowledge of the Rozier's plans. Here then was Hester in his crisp blue coat, who had commanded the old armies of the Kthonim. In a desperate hour he had sworn himself to the zirrafim to save the lives of his men, for he loved the soldiers of his command more dearly than he had loved his masters. With him he had brought the efrari legions of Phoad, each man and woman towering in angled plates, armour hissing sibilantly with smoke. He had Meccaleen gunners all in line and Ennish centaurs in reserve. He had sent forward zerrub ravagers to lurk and murder and great grey aptons to espy the foe. The zirraf Nefuriat stood at his shoulder, whispering in his ear.

Against him was the Fair Witch, Breah Corine. Three hours past she had lost the heights, her soldiers driven from position by the implacable assault of the efrari. Now she stood upon the foundry pinnacle, silks fluttering around her, and twelve leagues across she met Hester's gaze. She poured her will across the divide, heat and desire and contempt swirling languidly together. But Hester's will was iron, and he was not moved. She called down lightning from the drifting clouds, but up the efrari raised fine wires, and the storm's fury touched them not. Again the Cat's Eye dropped a solar lance upon the aracs, falling from the moontears wrapped in whistling heat. With a horrid wail the aracs split asunder and dissolved, and the Rozierey clasped their ears in pain.

"The Razmid must fly! I cannot hold him!" the witch cried out. Below zerrubs and efrari poured into the compound, sundering walls and crushing towers. Her sarkad ran forward with their screaming swords held aloft, cutting wildly and viciously; ravenous in their bloodlust. Aut soldiers stepped from assembly and into battle, no thought of retreat in their newly minted mechanical minds. Long ago they had been designed to fight the hated efrari, and they exulted in their purpose. For a moment Hester was held at bay, but only for a moment. His Meccaleen guns opened fire once more, and their blasting fragments ripped into the sarkad and drove them bloodily back. No possibility had escaped his consideration.  

The vessel waited. The unborn Razmid. Black and brilliant yellow, a sleek and deadly wasp. At the controls sat Vems the Helning, for no engineer on Kothon then surpassed her, and no being was more equal to the task. Her lithe and long clacking fingers gently brushing dials, toggles and switches not yet cleaned of grease and oil, so hurriedly were they placed. Her crew set to their preparations, the sounds and sights of battle all around, Rozierey striving desperately to safeguard the ship. "He is not ready," Vems said, her voice carried by artifice to the ear of Breah Corine. "But he will fly nonetheless. Run now, for we go." The Fair Witch and her cabal peeled away, hopping onto swift scudding clouds. The Sarkad clambered upon the hulk, climbing with their metal claws, ducking inside open ducts and hatches, slamming them shut. The brave auts did their duty, and they went down amidst the tide of the efrari. All Hester's guns were focused now, chewing away at the Razmid's armour cladding. The ground rumbled and the Razmid shook as if possessed by some powerful rage. Smoke and light, suddenly. Sound so fierce that naught else carried on the air. The greedy zerrubs were blasted away in fire, their bones turned to ash. Too far had they pursued the sarkad, and so they payed the price. Hester's legionaries slammed down their bulwarks and braced themselves, and they watched impassively as the Razmid began to rise. It thundered up and into the sky, trailing smoke and heat behind, fighting Kothon to reach the stars. Hester turned to Nefuriat, favouring the zirraf with his steely gaze. "Inform the Cat's Eye that we were unable to accomplish our primary objective. They should prepare themselves for company," Hester said.  

"Of course, general," the zirraf replied, bowing low. He sped away on his wings, carrying the word.

-----

In-Between

Again Nale stood before the Oor, and again he asked his question: "How shall I escape this labyrinth?" His voice echoed strangely in the spindle room as it was wont to do. It came back to him in a dozen different tones, all of them his own. His voice thundered with grief and rage, his voice cracked and split with harsh notes, pleading and sobbing. His voice was bereft of all emotion, and it seemed as if something dead spoke from his mouth. He shivered a little bit, as he often did. The Oor was bathed in twisting shadows of black and white, and Nale's eyes could never stay on it for long. When first he came upon the spindle room Nale had wondered with some intensity how a shadow could be white, but this had long since ceased to trouble him. The room was at it was, and Oors were as they were. Both simply had to be dealt with.

He stepped forward, pushing away the cobwebbed threads that hung all about, stretched to the dim horizon. A bitter tang ran through his muscles as the threads began to dissolve. He wanted to scream. Nale had to concentrate or he knew he would lose himself in the distance. So with he whispered a spell to steel his nerves.

Before him was the Oor. It sat amidst the nexus of threads, plucking plucking plucking, playing its strange song, vibrations coursing out and away. Its gaze came slowly to rest on him, though indeed Nale was sure that it had no eyes. Even after so many visits the Oor and its spindle room unnerved him, more so than any other place in the In-Between. The way the Oor's body slithered and shimmied, the way its angles clashed wrongly in the thin grey light. It was honestly really gross, and Nale felt that familiar and nearly overwhelming urge to wash himself, to scrub his skin until it was red and raw. He shook it off and asked his question: "How did I escape this labyrinth?"The Oor stirred then, a human head emerging from its oily oozing body. The perfect image of his grandmother.

"Oh, come on. Garn. We talked about this," Nale said. The face changed into that of a young man he didn't recognize.

"It apologizes. This Oor senses your distress and seeks to comfort you. It is uncertain when Nale tells him this," Garn replied, the young man's mouth moving silently, the Oor speaking in his mind, cold and clean.

"Also that. Stop that. No more heads, ok? Never show me heads. Not now, not then, not later." The head nodded thoughtfully as it sank back into Garn's roiling presence. Nale wasn't optimistic; Garn would forget, or it would remember, or it would do whatever it was Oors did. Its many limbs slowly coalesced into its body until only one remained. The lone limb seemed to hesitate, but at last it plucked a single string, the note carrying low and rumbling in Nale's chest.

"I'm dying, Garn. You know that I'm dying," Nale said, exhaustion hanging heavy on his breath. The truth was Nale was ready to die. He didn't know how long he'd been in the In-Between, but he knew it was too long. "If I leave again I won't be able to find my way back. I nearly didn't make it this time. I will cease, Garn, and all that is me will become the In-Between,"

"Ask again," Garn said.

Nale muttered under his breath, staring blankly at Garn for a few moments. But he did as the Oor demanded, acting out this tired ritual. He splayed his fingers and thought of air, of water, of green and grass and life. He touched and tasted the pictures in his mind, and he fed an aethered strand down his spine and out his pinky finger. The magician's skill, to bring forth memory into reality. In the In-Between such things were always tenuous, and he struggled to maintain the image as it popped in and out of being in the midst of the spindle room. It had taken him a very long time to figure out that thirdly he must summon and clarify his desire, lest the Oor remove him to some new and horrible depth.

"Mmmm," it considered, seeming somehow pleased by the idyllic scene that the magician had invoked around it. "It will tell you, Nale," it said, it's body suddenly stretching skyward, trembling, until it was lost to sight. While this spectacle had excited him the first time he'd seen it, Nale had learned not to get his hopes up when it came to the Oor. Each time it would tell him differently, and each time he would venture out into the In-Between. And he would fail, and each time it was harder to find his way back.

"It has seen you here in the spindle room infinitely and always. It has not yet seen you in the spindle room. But another sees you once and now. In the now of now and long ago," the Oor intoned in its psychic cant. "It has been wondering when this would happen," and Garn flashed hot and blue, and its form descended from on high, banishing white shadows and black shadows alike. That was different. As the Oor came to rest another head emerged, and Nale was filled with a manic fury. He was stuck in this nothing place, he was dying, and this shit-eating Oor was taunting him. And what had he said a thousand times? Oh right. No more heads. No more human heads, no more goat heads, no more heads of lettuce. He was going to kill the Oor. Screw the consequences.

"Garn," he said, sweetly and slowly. "Garn, what have I -"

"You're taking too long to figure this out," the head said.

For a second Nale thought he had finally gone well and truly insane. Nope. It had talked. With real words. On the air - or what passed for air in the In-Between. "What the fuck? Garn, what the living fuck?" he said, incredulous. He actually looked at the head, then, and realization hit him like a brick in the face. "Niv?" he asked dumbly.

"This Rozier's desire was to come hence, so it has been facilitated," Garn said, somehow smugly. As a rule Oors are never smug, but right then Nale was too caught up in the moment to notice this fascinating development. The Rozier seemed young and hale as his shoulders rose out from the Oor, straining to lift his arms from within, gritting his teeth in a fierce grin of determination. So unlike the grim and serious man Nale had last seen caked in ash and blood and regret, standing quietly amidst the carnage and broken wrecks that littered the field of Sermet. The Rozier lifted his arm out from the chaos of the Oor, sparks dancing across his skin. Nale didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think.

"Take my hand," Nivyas said, confident and easy, reaching towards him. Nale clasped the Rozier's palm to his own, and with a rush of motion and light he was pulled through.

-----

Bissel & the Sorcerer's Dominion

With his victory assured, the sorcerer set about the ordering of his new domain. The men of zin and the centaurs both had fled the city Dis, abandoned as they were by the few zirrafim who yet remained alive. And so Dis came into the possession of the Rozierey. Three strong castles were risen up to guard the city and its approaches, that no enemy should be allowed to undo what the Rozier had died to accomplish. They were named Karkeron, Tarnidine, and Guringweg.  

Across the mountains to the west lay the city Bissel, perched atop the waves of a sweetwater sea. Alone of Heosë's inner vassals had Bissel escaped the Rozier's wrath, for it lay upon the frontier of Nir's kingdom, and he had commanded that his armies trouble not that cursed man of Midan. But now the Rozier was gone, and the power left to this city gnawed away at Arram's mind. Still the sensate soen trained its witches there, and still they armed themselves with mood lances and mindkillers. Arram resolved to throw down Bissel and its daughter cities, that no more should they poke and needle away at his thoughts. He brought forth his army, and he set them to their work. An age of war was all they had known, and Bissel was not so great as the core of Rozierey. For ten years they defied the Sorcerer. They slung bolts of mindlessness upon his soldiers, and they fell upon each other in fear. They spread plagues of sorrow among his camps, and suicide engulfed them. Arram would not be deterred. For many months he prepared a great sorcery, locked away in the vaults of Dis.

Arram swallowed down a fine white powder, and he cut himself upon his palm He stood on the waters of the Baeln, and he began to hum. The water frothed and fumed, and his tune carried over the lake, its vibrations coursing patterns on the surafce. All eyes were upon him, or fixed toward that distant tower on the lake. Waves began to rise, but travelling not towards the shore. They rose and rose, ringing inwards, surrounding Bissel. They grew so high that they overtopped the shining green tower as they raced towards it. With a clap that rang out over a hundred leagues they came together upon the tower, swallowing it up and snapping it in twain. Slowly his hum grew quieter, and the water was calm.

"What have you done, Arram?" it was a sudden question in every ear, conversational, almost. A woman's voice. "What did you do?" it asked again. "Where is he, Arram?" The sky grew clouded, storms arising from nothing to swirl over the Baeln.

"I do only what I must!" Arram yelled, defiant, but there was no respite.

"what did you do what did you do what did you do" it continued, chattering madly, a tortured face appearing in the clouds, its eyes pits of utter darkness.

"Leave me be you hoary old ghost! You banshee! You hold nothing over me, Tercorax!" Arram screamed, flinging a bar of whitehot magefire into the clouds, cutting away at that leering visage. Tercorax was not deterred, and her words tumbled on every wind:

"where is his heart where is his lymph where are his BONES",

"I loved him, Arram",

"you nothing, you worm, you slave",

"He deceives you, stalwart Rozierey. He holds no salvation in his hands. He has defiled the body of our Lord, and he defiles his memory" she said, all together and all at once.

Arram turned to face his army, looking back upon them. He saw chaos and confusion, but amidst it all he spied many evil eyes fixed firmly on him. The Rozier's household companies stood at the fore and together, the Grengevir and the Litheen. These were the finest soldiers that remained in his service. While the greater mass milled and cried and cowered they gathered up their weapons and their belongings, and swiftly they stowed their camps. The Sorcerer watched them as they silently departed, and in turn they watched him back until they were gone from sight. Arram left on a cloud, paranoia and fear cavorting in his wild eyes. His loyal commanders were left amidst the chaos to their own devices, and it took them many days to set the Rozierey to order and to marshal them for the slow return to Dis.

-----

Death's Own Headsman

Nír lay sprawled upon the ground, his finery torn and tattered. The Dimmerwald was at last exhausted, and it fell from his insensate fingers with a clatter. Nír and his few remaining Knights had fought desperately for many years to save their home from an evil fate, to keep it safe against the enemies their vanquished Lord had roused. These last Knights stood afore the Host of Bones twelve times and defied those dread reapers, routing them from the skies and chasing them back into the void. But no longer. The thirteenth toll weighed too heavily upon them, and so the courage of that country was finally broken.

Efra burns. Efra the Bounteous, Efra the Beautiful, Efra of the Winding Ways. The seat of Midani skill and knowledge, the heart of their hearts. Blackness seeps and pours down every street and into every building, and so the Midani are bound in soul-chains. As he lay there upon the ground watching his country die, Nír despaired and cursed his Master's name, and he wept, and he knew there was no salvation. As bare heavy feet fell behind him - as his skin prickled and his sweat froze - he spoke one final secret sorcery, and he sent it on its way. Strong hands seized him then, and lifted him into the air. Nír looked down into the old black eyes of his foe. Deathson looked back.

"Nír," he said, four more arms appearing from his fluttering cloak to in turn grasp the Knight about his own insensate limbs. "Nír, what shall I do with you?"

"As you will Deathson," he replied, a gurgle deep in his throat, spit and blood dribbling from his broken mouth. "Perhaps another time I would have won, but not here. Not now."

The reaper nodded slowly. "Yes. Another time, perhaps," he said, his tone agreeable. Deathson carried Nír over to the battlement then, the better to see the city from the heights of that knightly palace. "But I am not here to end you, Nír. I am no true zirraf, as you know. The Lady may have plied my flesh and blood and bones with her art to make me such, but her success was only partial. Now she is dead, and for this I owe your Master a great debt."

"And what need have you of me?" Nír asked. "What need when you and your reapers have brought me low?"

"They have no imagination, Nír. Their minds are not alike to mine, or even alike to yours. They will not do for this task I set you. Creation changes, can you feel it? It adapts, and it molds itself into new form. I will have my hand in this, and so I have need of your hands as well," Deathson said, the barest hint of a smile on his thin, cracked lips.

"I will not do this, Deathson. I am done. Let me end. I long only to be folded up in the sweet embrace of oblivion." he said as he smelled the smoke, as he gazed upon ashes and embers.

"No. I am afraid I cannot let you go, Nír. You are far too valuable a tool. What a tool thinks of its task is irrelevant, for it will be done. Now, you will hurt for only a few moments more. Let us set to." he whispered, a grin blossoming on his dead grey face. Nír's screams carried for many miles, but there was no one there to hear.

-----

Sup. Here is most of the long promised appendix. I will be posting Appendix 1.1 in the coming weeks, and it will focus entirely on the current situation. You do not need to send orders. I am however soliciting suggestions for content! If there's anything you want expanded on or detailed, please let me know. It is my intent that filling out this desired information will make Our Terrible Purpose better for everyone. Thanks to all my players for continuing to be patient with me.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Appendix Two: A Watcher Perched Above



- the council, Cortescan: "Let the scholar be dragged by the hook! Let the highwayman scream in the oubliette; let the matricide be torn by the blades; let the scholar be dragged by the hook! From the matricide take his honours; from the highwayman take his name. Butcher of the innocent, let him be dragged by the hook! Let the scholar be led to his tomb; let the scholar be dragged by the hook!" -

- a bounty, posted: "I will be revenged upon the halfling Mahol, he who slew my husband. Let it be known to all and let it be known to the halfling. My heart is ash, but I will see this done. Whosoever should destroy this demon and bring to me a mote of his dying essence as certain proof shall have my hand in marriage and a dowry so great and golden the hills will groan to bear its weight. Death is this creature's wish, so let us grant him his desire. Bring to me his bones and I shall brew a great vigour for you. Bring his skin and I will give you the third eye. Bring to me his liver and I will eat it. Bitterness will be my only reward. These are the words of the Seer of Seadh and so you know that they are true. -

Muhr of Zartogog

They were eating lunch together, just as they often did. The canteen was nearly empty. A few men and women ate languidly in small groups, exhausted by the summer heat. Two only seemed untroubled: Muhr of Zartogog, honoured guest to Karkeron, and John Harsing, that city's most able captain. These two rarely spoke at length, but they seemed comfortable in company with one another.

Watching Muhr eat was fascinating in a gruesome way, and John could admire the efficiency. A whiff of jasmine. Sickly sweet, his stomach turning suddenly. John coughed to cover his discomfort. "It is not a good smell," Muhr said, mumbling over a mouth stuffed full of fried plantains. "It is made from anger and despair. Zirrafs have little else left to them. I do not envy you." John considered his response for a moment, his brow furrowing thoughtfully. Engaging Muhr in conversation was always difficult. You had to pick your words carefully. John had never been a very good conversationalist. He decided to take a direct approach.

"Why is that?" he asked, fingers crossed beneath the table. Muhr kept on eating. John waited. He could always wait – he was a very patient man. Eventually the wizard had tucked away his meal. He wiped his mouth and took a long drink of cool water.

"I will tell you a story we tell our children in Zartogog. It is a story of the Alphar," he said. "There was war long ago between the Alphar and the Coathes, for they disagreed mightily with one another. But as both became wiser and older they saw that there was no reason for their strife, and with much embarrassment they made a promise to be good neighbours and to live in peace and quiet. But what was their argument? If you ask an Alph she would say that it is long forgotten. This answer may do for Alphar, but we are men. Knowledge is our desire. It was a question that all must ask, of course. How do we live in the world? The Coathes gave one answer, and the Alphar another. 'We must take what we need to live, but there is not enough for us here. We will bring it from elsewhere and it will sustain us,' the Coathes said. 'No,' the Alphar replied 'What we need is all about us and within us. Look and you will see.' Many bitter years later both knew that the other was right, and that each was also wrong. And so no longer did they look for knowledge, for they realized they were no longer men. But in Zartogog we are men, and in Zartogog we are wizards. It is the duty of the wizard never to cease in his search for questions. But a wizard must remember that he is a man, so that he will not cease in his search for answers. We learn the lessons of those who came before us, and we reconcile what they could not." Muhr cocked his head to one side as his words faded, his brown eyes expectant. John really didn't know what to make of it.

"But the Alphar are long dead. Before the War, before I was born," John said. Muhr shrugged.

"I have seen two amongst the Rozierey since I have been in Karkeron, John. Perhaps you have not met them? They told me that they were guests as well. We spoke of pleasant walking trails in the hills nearby," he said, hands folded contentedly. John swept to his feet and rushed out of the hall, knocking over chairs in his haste. Muhr had never seen him move so quickly.

-----

On Sensinsal

On the shores of the Fugue Seas and on the island of Essely there are fourteen cities. This in itself I find remarkable, as barely two centuries past this entire region was an uncivilized wilderness. This curious phenomenon must certainly be attributed to the migrations of foreign peoples into the region amidst and following the Demonaion. Most prominent among these cities is Sensinsal, which I will now describe for your Majesty's benefit. It is a gaudy and primitive sprawl, but well-organized and well-disposed to serve the basic needs of its populace. If I should grant the Sensileans any praise it will be for their pleasant and airy public spaces. They unquestioningly believe their city to be the greatest left in the world; it is at most one third the size of your Majesty's own capital.

Sensinsal is the seat of a witch of immense power who grants herself the title Empress and lordship over many lands – a direct challenge to and usurpation of the rights of the Drakkanthron, I will note. This so-called Empress has gathered to herself many other witches of lesser talent, and they are eager to serve her and win her favour - that they might be granted those skills which she secrets to herself. At the heart of the city lies a living edifice which the people name the Shuddering Palace. It is intensely aware of all that transpires within and about it, seeing through its thousand eyes, tasting with its thousand tongues. It is utterly devoted to the witch, and as it grows so too does its capability. It has been necessary to adjust my concealment several times – it may not be looking for me, but it is always looking. It is my suspicion that this creature is Angalan in origin, though I do not know how the witch should have come into its possession.

In light of these and other revelations the dispatch of further southern colonies may become necessary, and is indeed my recommendation. This matter will require further consideration in council by the Drakkanthron and the Emissariat on my return.

~ Cayanos Yetho

-----

In Hill Country

The earth rumbles and groans. Churning steel and churning stone. The clangor and hiss of the drill room locked away neatly behind glass. The whirling of red-hot engines, the twisting bursts of steam, the bellowing of white-coated engineers and the the fraught scrambling of harried technicians. Silence, save for a deep vibration trembling on the air and beneath their feet. The Facilitator turned to regard the Doctor. Young, trim, and motivated. A perfect product, just as the Facilitator was himself.  

"At its current rate of descent the Bore will reach targeted depth within three days, Facilitator. Temperatures have exceeded our projections, and lower viscosity of transiting mantle materials has required a decrease in rotation for the safety of the equipment. Our insulators are proving sufficient, and transfer rates should not be effected," she said.

"If you would spare me the details, Doctor. The Collaborate only requires that the project be ready to move ahead as scheduled. The minutiae are not my concern - they are yours, or they will become those of your replacement," the Facilitator said, his words curt and crisp. The Doctor's eyes hardened, and he could almost feel the heat of her ire. It didn't bother him. "You understand the necessities," he continued, "Your office would suffer gravely were this operation to fall behind,"

"Oh, I understand quite well, Facilitator. More than most, I suspect" she said, her tone - so carefully controlled – in sharp contrast to the plain anger on her face. "I have no concerns that we will be unable to deliver as promised. You can tell that to the Collaborate."

"I will," he said. "In three days, then, I hope to be toasting your success. A relaxing proposition. More so than the dissolution of our partnership and the immediate review of this entire department." The Doctor only smiled in response. The Facilitator smiled back.

-----

the House of Hands

Wisest Teachers,

My infiltration of the encampment has been successful. There are numerous strange workings and phenomena here, many incomprehensible to my limited understanding of anomes. Most that are sensible to me are the work of the Sevander. These seem altered somehow from their original purpose; contorted at their edges. The zirraf has raised a strange edifice atop the rotting and haunted castle Tarnidine. The blasted towertops shine wetly, coated in and latticed with some dark and lustrous material. They call it the House of Hands.

Concerning Tarnidine's previous occupants the corpses of several grimbles are displayed publicly and prominently for the amusement of the masses: impaled on tall metal spikes, limbs twitching and wailing, bodies scored with deep oozing rents. Of the Sevander there is not even a whisper, and I could not say what has become of it. Perhaps the zirraf slew it, or perhaps it is fled elsewhere. I do not know.

Among the host of hosts that rings itself around the castle and through the surrounding countryside it is not difficult to remain undetected. The people are unruly and many are destitute. There are seven bands of armed men in the outer encampments, each at least ten thousands strong. They call themselves weskari, and they have brought their wives and their children. Amidst the weskari bands are three  mounds of distal sharps, digging warrens and raising hills. The men shy away from the dwellings of the sharps, and the weskari have made funneling trenches and raised fences in the fields between them. These mounds reportedly have exhibited similar behaviour to those destroyed ninety-seven years ago in the vicinity of Guringweg, though I have as yet observed no predation and little violence.

Further inwards are encamped the Maruwe, tall and pale as snow, dark-haired and dark-eyed. They hail from the land of Naghir, a far southern realm. Their well-spirited joviality contrasts sharply with their love of cruelty. They are slaveholders, and the suffering of their chattel is immense. Many among their slaves are recently taken Wealdings. The Maruwe have been hired in some capacity, though the terms of their contract with the zirraf are incomprehensible to me. The others here in the outer circles are insular, alien, or hostile and I have been unable as of yet to ingratiate myself with any among them. The inner encampments are closely guarded by the zirraf's servants and spells, and Tarnidine itself I can spy only from a distance. At this juncture I will estimate that zirraf-by-the-water has at his command a quarter-million fighters. This numbering does not account for the Akte and Chirew centaurs, who have been sent forth into Rem, and who I have not observed.

-----

Essels

On the islands dwell the Essels. They are hardy and spry, and make good shepherds and urchin-divers. The sling is their weapon, and for its skillful use they are renowned across the Fugue Seas. They have moved further inland over the course of the past century, pushed out by Phoadrim settlement. This seems of benefit to their society more than hindrance. Though there is some contention still among their tribes, they raise two cities on good ground: Hycan and Elyx. The Essels are not naturally a city-dwelling people, but they are clever and take to its practices quickly.  

The great Aptons of the islands often act as patrons to the Essel tribes, and in this endeavour they make no exception to their practice. The Fisher-Kings have granted much of their treasure to the city of Hycan, that the Essels there can swiftly raise great edifices through the provision of foreign expertise. They race to catch the Essels of Elyx, who have been aided in their labours by the earthen magics and careful planning of the Crag Ravens. Both cities have built tall tower-eyries to accommodate their benefactors. It would be wrong to mistake this for servitude – these relationships have always been symbiotic.

-----

Avring the Wealding King

"I am King of the Wood and Wild, and you stand upon my shore. Who are you?" Avring said, a veil of polished river-stones hanging to hide his orange-fire eyes. He was tall like a giant, but lithe and fine to look at. He had three long manes about his neck: red, brown and gold. He had bit clean and eaten the Sorcerer's leg - he had gouged an aching cut upon his back. He had stalked the Sevander beneath the trees and made it cower in a hole until the fickle light of dawn. He had lain in wait for the Royal Hunt, striking quick to slay many of Rhomes' best companions. He was a brute and he was a beast.

"If I stand upon your stolen shore then I am zirraf-by-the-water. This seems as fit a name as any. I have come this way with purpose and I have brought a host of hosts. You will let me pass, and I shall take all that I require. As you have stolen so shall I," the zirraf said in reply, his coat of stars shining brightly.

No more words were needed then. The Wealding King brought all the strangling heat and horror of the wood, grasping and grabbing. The zirraf answered with an ancient oath and the dying emptiness of the long dark night. There was no rejoinder. The zirraf walked across Avring's cold and brittle bones.

-----

- Nír took three students as his to tutor: Eslan, Arram, and Nivyas. For this bargain he was pardoned for his crimes, though he was bound by geas to bear the wicked scars of the oubliette so long as he should live. Eslan was scion to a great house and a place for him was bought. Arram was a slave and he won his by chance in lottery. Nivyas was no one in particular. For you see, even the wrack could not scourge Nír of his cleverness. And so he was granted one student of his own choosing, and in this his will could not be contested – for he had touched it to those same chains of geas and seeming.

He taught his pupils the Midani arts. Arturiscry first, that they might fortify body, mind and spirit against cruelty and hardship. Maniplas second, that in subtle ways reality should change itself to please them. Sorcery third, that the true power of the aether could be theirs to wield. -

--------------------

Hey everyone! So. There's still a few minor things that need to be done, but otherwise I think we are in good shape to proceed with Update Four. Orders will be due by the end of the day on Sunday, January 6th.

Space is still available, so if anyone wants to join feel free to contact me. If you need more information I'd be happy to provide it!