There is a song to it, the lapping of the water. A memory surfaces with the sound, the soft splash as the tide kisses the stone, the playful sound of specks splashing as they break away from the body. Most never hear the plop after, the little spray of water back into the whole. Sigrid hears it, she hears everything now.
The memory rises in her mind like a bubble into another ...
2025-05-14 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostGalea's voice is cut off by the sound of breaking bones that rattles through my body. A sense of weightlessness overtakes me before the pain even registers. My body crashes into the east wall, the worked stone breaking beneath me as my shoulder and back slam into it. All the air in my body rushes away from me, a choked gasp escaping my lips.
The world is night, a...
And with that, the final gambit begins. There always comes a point where turning back becomes impossible. Most never see it arriving, but we have that opportunity now. I won’t ask you to turn back, to reconsider, because I know that you won’t, you can’t. All I ask is that you see it now and understand just how long these dice will roll. I have seen it. Your comfortable positio...
2025-05-10 18:02:02 +0000 UTC View PostA man with small enemies is a small man. Do not diminish those who oppose you, not in character, intelligence, or reasoning. To overcome an adversary is to be the victor. To overcome a great adversary is to be great.
-Emperor Tar’Akannan
We alight once more on the dance floor, the slow transition of the light overhead casting h...
2025-05-07 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe point is not to impress but to conform. We teach dance as a path toward unity, toward community. Only a few seconds are required to see who doesn’t belong when they take the floor.
-Proverbs, from the tome of Kadish
Introductions take well over an hour to be made, and by the time we are through, more people have made it int...
2025-05-05 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostAh. I get it. We had a juggler come through a couple of times, showed off his tricks, make the people look one way while his other hand slides the bird out of the box. If that’s what we want done, I think this works. I just don’t see why you need to throw this one in. No. I’ll see it done. Just a little sooner than I expected.
-Ferro
J...
The oracle is broken again. My father went to have his prospects set in line, he is preparing to make his final presentation to the academy council in a few weeks. Instead of anything intelligible, the oracle kept saying, “Fate is dead, it always has been.” It’s a strange thing for an oracle to say, I think, but apparently, that is all it has been telling people for the last four ...
2025-04-30 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe worst part about all the beggars loitering in the streets is all the eyes. Taking the sidepath off Garagan Street, Morello hunches forward, his tall frame stooping. It doesn’t help much; the destitution throughout Danfalla has reached the point that the sorry souls languishing in the gutter would consider even his threadbare coat and worn boots a luxury. No one cares about these p...
2025-04-28 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostFew failures are worth the lessons they leave, and few victories come without cost. To engage in war is to gamble always. That is its deadly attraction.
-Proverbs, from the tome of Kadish
The army spends the rest of the day camped not a hundred paces away from one of the collapsed entrances leading into the western hive. Those with the...
2025-04-26 18:02:02 +0000 UTC View PostThere is no bad way to defeat an opponent. Our enemies have taught us that, and it is a poor man who cannot learn from his enemies.
-“Ruminations” Emperor Garifax
A cry of unimaginable rage and indignation follows the wave of magic, the sound loud enough that it shakes the stone itself. I lose my understanding of the world outside m...
2025-04-23 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostThere are few emotions quite so powerful as rage. They exist, but are not nearly as sweet.
-Atherinon, Taker of Secrets
Out there in the chamber, the last termites are cut down. I sit on the rise with Jor’Mari, watching as a group of eight adventurers corral the last monster, cutting down the others as they push it into isolati...
2025-04-22 10:41:14 +0000 UTC View PostI’m not happy about it. Sorry to say, but I just plainly ain’t. When we claim one as ours, that is supposed to be respected. That is your rule.
…Yes…Yes, I understand. I’ll have to be there. I don’t care about the others. I want to see the moment she stops breathing for myself. I like those eyes.
- Ferro
This is an awful idea. ...
2025-04-19 18:50:19 +0000 UTC View PostFar too little activity. Illigar floats above the northern hive, staring down at the meandering termites climbing up and down its exterior walls. The north tribe of monsters is different in that they never leave the bounds of the hive. Even those climbing the outside of the structure only venture out for short periods; there is some kind of rotation present in the hive that cycles them through....
2025-04-17 07:30:53 +0000 UTC View PostLaws used to be fun. They were rules for the lower beings, suggestions for us. Then Galahad had to come along and get a stick up his ass about rules. Now, he encroaches on all of us. My father should put him in his place, but he won’t. Maybe one day I will know why.
-Excerpt from “My Talks with Glis’Merinda, Daughter of Exeter”
Written by Dak of Kell
I don’t move. The tension I see in everyone else sets me on edge far before I hear the clatter of heavy claws against the stone floor. A billowing cloud of pink color moving in a chaotic swirl approaches from the darkness, followed a moment later by a lumbering form. I don’t know what to make of the creature in front of me, it hunches forward like a waddling bear, only it is twice t...
2025-04-12 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostThat is the entire reason we have come here. We claim that half of the landmasses in our world are fully under the sway of monsters, lands where no civilization can take root. I challenge this narrative, the world cannot be half-empty. There are people out there that we have yet to find, and if they live in such monster-infested realms as these, they need our help. Where better to start...
2025-04-10 09:22:32 +0000 UTC View PostWhat I appreciate most about this sentence is that my execution has been stayed for so long. Traitors don’t tend to get so long, so the fact that you are moving it up by three years doesn’t bother me too much. I would like it if you didn’t, but I understand. Want to get my head separated from my body before the army arrives, don’t ya? Well, I have a feeling you are already too l...
2025-04-07 18:02:00 +0000 UTC View PostWait. The three hells are real?!
- Corinth Devardem, shortly after falling through a portal in the wilderness
The rain tapping against the transparent dome of my ship creates a strange sight. The water lands, splatters, and sticks until a large droplet passes by, collecting momentum and size as it curls downward. Hundreds of small rivulets streak past as the shi...
2025-04-05 20:11:08 +0000 UTC View PostDamp leaves clump together on the broken porch, the tickling wind trying to peel the topmost away with ephemeral fingers. The rain cuts right through Izmeralda’s coat, a piece that had been rather nice when she pulled it off some lady a season ago. The constant beating of the weather left it bare, the tanned leather scrapping away at the dirty hem to reveal ragged burgundy strings scu...
2025-04-03 08:26:54 +0000 UTC View PostWhat people fail to understand about magic is that it has a natural origin. Magicians adhere concepts to their souls, forming a bridge between the divine realm and the physical, allowing them to manifest the power of their souls in this place. The warlocks of the dark tides use different physical mediums to exert their will; the power is not generated from their souls but from rare item...
2025-04-02 03:52:30 +0000 UTC View PostThey want to make a myth out of you, take you from being a person and turn you into something hateable. I won’t let them.
Breath, yelling, and explosions of magic. I hunch forward, supporting myself with hands on my knees, gulping in a lungful of air while my head tries to tear itself apart. A waterskin drifts into my vision, offered to me by one of the five rang...
2025-03-29 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostYou’re doing so well; just hang on a bit longer. Won’t be long now, Dal. Just a bit longer; we all know you can do it.
-Ferro
The town is almost as large as Westgrove had been, but no one walks its streets any longer. With my ship secured inside my vault, I stand on the deck of the flying device Illigar uses to get around. The square platform of grayish ston...
2025-03-27 07:13:43 +0000 UTC View PostMake your mark, it doesn’t matter how. Let them know you were here.
-Corinth Devardem
Illigar did not lie; finding Jae Madigast is incredibly easy. Not knowing what a mankith even was, I approached the small restaurant on the northern side of the city with a bit of trepidation, but I don’t think anything could have properly prepared me for what I found insid...
2025-03-26 02:48:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe fast-growing grass is not what manages to scrape the skies; only trees can do that. They take their time, they grow at a steady pace, and while grass burns itself out low to the ground, even the weakest sapling will reach higher if it has the patience.
- Elvish Proverb, from a land without bamboo
The dewy smell of the humid night air is enough to crowd...
2025-03-22 18:02:01 +0000 UTC View PostBeginnings are a fine thing in moderation. Overindulge and you will find yourself going nowhere.
-Tales of the East
From my seat inside my ship, the dark landscape below appears almost peaceful. Verneaus rests in one of the chairs set to the side. The man claims he won’t be leaving the ship anymore and spends his time reading a book, though I haven’t s...
2025-03-19 18:02:02 +0000 UTC View PostHow far can a sin stretch into the future? You’re right. Forever say the gods. Damn you Exeter.
-“Ruminations” Emperor Garifax
Verneaus holds tight to his nerves by gripping tightly his pant leg. The grass-covered earth, this ruined forest, shakes as he sits against the tree, the warm glow of his personal shield around him. Orange and pink needles ra...
2025-03-19 04:54:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe floor above groans in the wake of fast footsteps. Sitting in the dark warehouse, discarded crates with their pried open lids scattered all around the floor, Ferro watches the ceiling for hints of movement. He can almost track the concern above by the particles of dust peeling away from the boards to sprinkle down among the refuse about him. He could still smell old filth and urine i...
2025-03-18 00:06:00 +0000 UTC View PostUnfortunately, the word monster has become so entangled with these magical aberrations that we have lost the original meaning. It is dangerous to forget that.
-Unattributed
The serious atmosphere is gone by the time I make it halfway to the back of the room. Those at the tables scattered around the hall are already busy speaking with one another; some discussing the inf...
2025-03-14 20:26:23 +0000 UTC View PostAh, you must be one of those mad individuals from the Emerson Campus, preaching the divine gospel of homogeneity. Such a bore, such a cad, believing such a thing could exist. Defend yourself, sir, heterogeneity is the only true aspect of reality, and I shall show it to you in your blood on the stone.
-”Conversations: Eavesdroppings from the Mad City”
Heads wer...
2025-03-13 08:57:07 +0000 UTC View PostHow was I to know my words would start a war? Should I have been put in charge of foreign diplomacy as the empire began to fall to ruin? No. Could I have refused Takanakan when he gave me the position? Also, no. As you can see, this sentencing is not a very just one, in my own opinion.
-Confession of Gabric Tarn, on the eve of his execution
My world of dull, aching mise...
2025-03-12 04:59:26 +0000 UTC View Post