!dev

Vampire homegirl and I got into bit of a pickle last time we went out marauding around the City of the Dead. We collected payment for a hit on a merchant, but a large portion of the money was discounted, as unbeknown to us, there was a witness to our bloody crime.

Soon enough, we were being hunted down by a rival sect, encroaching on our territory. Their High Priest sent some dogs our way, and we felt right into their ambush, at a crossroads within the southern alleways. I took down three of those sons of bitches, with two crossbow bolts stuck on my back, before finally being knocked down by a shield slammed to my face.

Got both my fucking legs mauled with a flail and almost put out of commission. Luckily, my vampiric companion was there to save my skin. She fought a desperate duel against the last one of our foes left standing: an inquisitor, sent to either capture, or more likely, kill us both.

This fucker was tougher than any adversary either of us had ever fought against. Fully clad in silver armor, wearing an enchanted crimson cloak, her face hidden behind a terrifying iron mask. My companion stood her ground, but throughout the fight, she was constantly on the defensive, hesitant to close too much distance against the enemy.

Our foe launched one devilishly mighty blow, that my partner in crime fortunately managed to block. However, her blade was pulverized by the sheer weight of the inquisitor's strike, nearly shattering her ribcage. In a last ditch effort to survive the encounter, she lunged at her opponent with what remained of her sword, and stabbed the hunter right in her fucking eye, to then sink her fangs into the ecclesiastical bitch's neck.

Having temporarily incapacitated the inquisitor, we made our escape. My companion carried me back to our safehouse, where we would plan our next move... but our masters were one step ahead of us.

At our hideout, we were intercepted by them, at the behest of the Matriarch. We were to be smuggled out of the city inside a funeral carriage, to then be safely transported back to our sacred order's sanctuary.

Uppon arriving, we were confronted and reprimanded for our failures, past and present. I was forcefully separated from my esteemed nocturnal friend, as way our masters put it, our growing affections were cause for concern. Longing to be reunited, we schemed for weeks through our mutual acquaintances in the monastery, delivering small coded messages.

Through our cunning subterfuge, we finally managed to meet in an ancient grotto underneath a cedrus tree, on a hill overlooking the sanctuary. I was ready to plan a daring escape, but to my suprise, she had her mind made up to a wildly different course of action. We were to play by their rules -- go through with their dark cleansing rituals, meant to re-educate us before admitting us back into the order as fully-fledged acolytes.

And so, in the penumbra of that age-old grotto, a pact was made.

I am now riding south on a black stallion, falchion in hand, and a trail of witches' blood in my wake. I carry with me orders from the Matriarch herself: purify the nearby catacombs and prove my devotion to the utter blackness of our faith. Should I not return, my companion will be up next.

Failure is not an option. As I evade the twisted creatures that guard the entrance, and descend the staircase down into the tomb, I wonder what kind of horrors await me inside...

OH GOD FUCKING SHIT I JUST STEPPED ON A TRAP

** TO BE CONTINUED **

!dev

Nothing is a dream.

My very first step, as I left the staircase, was on a plate. A loud click made my instincts tick, pushing me to blindly roll forwards.

Before I even had the time to process, that I had just evaded being burnt alive by a wall of flames, the rumblings of another mechanism made my heart accelerate yet again.

Five iron spikes descended uppon me, scratching my cloak, but no more. Twice I was lucky...

But three doors: one behind me, two to my left and right. The ones at my sides spring open with a loud crack, and four terrors pour out, seeking to flay me alive and wear my skin.

I slash at them with my bloody falchion, walking backwards, seeking to escape through the remaining door. Primal fear runs through my spine as I realize: it's barred from the other side!

Burning through my mana, I manage to unlock the door, and quickly close it behind me... but the terrors do not abandon the chase. With inhuman strength, they pound on the door, while desperately crying out for my blood.

I try to escape to the next room... another locked door. There must be another way! There has to, or I'm as well as dead...

What's this, in the corner, among cobwebs? A handle... and a secret passageway, that I can close from the other side! Magnificent!

Another flight of stairs takes me deeper into the tomb. I find an oil lamp, suspiciously well-maintained. Someone has been here recently...

I marvel at the macabre carvings on the wall, depicting scenes from when immortal tyrants ruled the earth. Haven't I seen these before... ?

No matter, I must focus. I was instructed to find an artefact hidden within this acursed place, that I may use for the purification ritual -- there is only one way, so onwards.

An old wooden gate, with a broken bronze knob. Soon as I put my hand on it, it opens inwards...

Eyes black like diamonds, she awaited me inside.

I had never been, simultaneously, just as terrified as enraptured. Day and night, her voice still reverberates inside my mind. And even as I lay dead, her inescapable gaze still clutches the very bottom of my heart.

"Did you come for me?" she asked, smiling, opening up her arms, so that I may fall into her sweet, loving embrace.

"Yes" I whispered as I walked towards her, enthralled.

In a bout of deranged ecstasy, she drank every last drop of my blood. But then... she cried, cuddling my remains.

"No... no, no, NO!" her screams tore apart her very soul "I killed my son... I KILLED MY SON!"

Oh, mother...
Don't cry mother
it hurts no more.

Now I live again.
And I forgive you.

Because I loved you,
as ashamed as I am to admit,
the very moment I saw your eyes,
I loved you.

"I was imprisoned here, so that I may not harm anyone else" she muttered, tears in her eyes "I cannot stop myself -- I am cursed"

Do not ask of me, that I end your suffering.
How could I?
If there is no cure...

"Please, my love... " she begged "kill me... "

No... I can't...
I can't bear either weight
for the rest of this wretched eternity!

How could I take your life?
But how could I leave you to suffer?!

"Now we'll be together... " she smiled, as I raised the falchion.

"Forevermore" I wept, before bringing it down.

***

Nothing is a dream.

Somber, I returned to the Santuary, having fulfilled my mission.

But looking uppon the bone mask I donned, obscuring my eyes, the Matriarch knew that I had been... changed.

I felt no remorse as I slaughtered the witch that doomed my beloved, right on her own altar to heresy. She earned as much.

Her guards, however, I could not defeat.

But that doesn't matter;
deep inside, I was already dead.
And behind the mask,
the whole way through,
I had shed tears without pause.

"Now we'll be together... " I prayed to the nightsky, as silver blades punctured my thorax.

"Forevermore" her sweet voice replied.

***

Going through my lore notes. And I'm playing a game with myself, so to speak: it's called "is this metal enough?", but with a side of quasi-metaphysical arcane technobabble plus mass wallmelting and nightmarishly psychedelic confusion.

For example... why are shadow gates a thing? Well, because of the undoing of time caused a multiplicity of parallel cycles that will, inevitably, slowly collapse upon themselves through a sequence of irreducible asynchronicities. But of course!

Now, as for the metal part, that's the undoing of time. You see, the Somberlain attempted to cast the most sinful signa in order to restore the desolate mortal realm as it stood on the brink of a world-ending cataclysm, this was after a decade of brutal, reckless litechnical abuse during the civil war fought amongst the first undecimvirate...

Now, he intended to roll back time itself as a way to avoid the cataclysm and restore life to the mortal realm, but the cost was immense: time was not rolled back, but rather __forcefully__ torn apart; it was effectively shredded, shattered, and undone.

Countless lives were lost as nearly six hundred years of Being were __erased__ in an instant, the most heinous large-scale blood sacrifice in history, spanning the entirety of the lower fragment of reality. I mean is this too dark, I'm not sure. How about I clarify: he didn't just snuff out their lives, no, they CEASED TO EXIST. THEY NEVER EXISTED. GONE. UNBECOMED INTO A TRUE IMMEMORIAL. OVER FIVE CENTURIES OF EVERY CONSCIOUS MOMENT ON EARTH DEVOURED TO FUEL HIS DARK MAGIC.

That's gotta have consequences, right? Well, obviously you'll get temporal distortions after that shit, I mean duh...

But wait, I'm lost, you say the undecimvirate deified themselves but were cast down after the whole superman spinning the earth backwards thing went full bathory and erased entire centuries from the fabric of the cosmos, so they were turned into the eleven thrones to guard over the eleven circles of the night eternal... but how is that linked to natural occurrences of teleportation?

First off, because *natural* teleportation is distinct from *artificial* teleportation. Failed experiments with (and miscasts of) mass transference of living matter are one of the leading causes of death among litarchs. It is not an instant transmission, just very, very quick, moreso than a mortal mind can process, that's why the "dilate" and "delay" sigils are added, so as to make the journey seem slowed down to the perceptions of whomever is teletransported, this is meant to ensure their brains don't __melt__ from the experience.

Similar reason as to why you have to give the _approximate_ total weight to carry when inscribing the ritual circle, you *do* know that it is __highly__ recommended to use accurate weighing scales to approximate this quantity, as under or overestimating it can lead to _FATAL_ consequences... do you not?

No, *natural* occurrences of teleportation do not have these constraints for two reasons: one, because both ends of the gateway are _fixed_ in both time and space due to the logic-defying occurrence of a future event being undeniably the cause of the past it revisited. Put on this toga. They are inextricably linked through the metaphorical and *literal* corpse of infinite collapsed timelines, which generates a conduit through the first circle of the night eternal, which *is* the domain of both forgetfulness and horror immemorial.

Second, the final layer on our stratified reality, that is, the final circle before the INVIOLABLE divine veil, wraps around the night eternal, which is why we call it "the shell". Or "Crisalida" if you dig Luis Alberto. It is a realm entirely outside of time, which is why the patriarchs can grant immortality, you see. By proximity to this sacred shell of existence, the timeline-corpse-conduit that links both ends of a shadow gate is, for all intents and purposes, approaching total chronostasis, therefore making it so bypassing physical space in a few seconds doesn't give you permanent loss of the sense of self as your brain turns into liquified jelly.

I don't remember what I was getting at and I don't care.