Editing Shattered Sun (section)

=Tales of the Shattered Sun=

==The Awakening==
I was just a boy when the Great Phoenix awoke from his slumber. When after thousands of years, he had regrown and regenerated from his great crusade against the swarms of the void. When he began to flex within his crystal shell, the normally yellow light slowly pulsing through the spectrum, from red to ultraviolet, changing every several days. Wizards and alchemists pondered the meaning, gazing at the sun in wonder, debating in their towers. Until The Cracking.

The slow changes between colors began to speed up. Faster and faster they came. Everyone in my village went out to look at the sun, captivated by its power. Staring up as colors spun like a child's kaleidoscope. I could not, for I was bedridden with fever. But I could see the lights playing with the shadow beyond the doorway of our hut.

Suddenly, a flare. Screams from outside as the onlookers were struck blind by the Phoenix's power, by the incredible influx of light. I stumbled from my fever bed and looked up at the sky. I and those others who had looked away or were busy indoors saw something not seen before or since. A great bird unfurling its wings across the sky, crystal slivers exploding outwards with incredible force in all directions, its feathers changing colors before our eyes. Women fainted, men wept, most soiled themselves. I could only look up in awe, mouth agape, as the great bird flapped its wings and flew off into the void, searching for its prey.

Weeks later the Shards began to fall. Daggers flying towards us, flung from an uncaring god. Forests burned, seas turned to steam, cities destroyed. Civilization died along with most of humanity.

But we persevered. Some shards dance across the sky now, smaller suns for smaller men. Others are stabbed deep into the earth, pillars of flaming stone burning evermore that no man may go near. All are intensely magical, creating new life and imbuing the mundane with the extraordinary. Wizards prize even the smallest of pieces. Some say there are great feathers within the Shards that can bring back the dead and give life everlasting. 

One must get past the death cults. Exotic beasts driven mad by magic. Twilight cannibals that feast upon sun-fed flesh. Not to mention the mountains of fire themselves.

I've seen every Shard from here to the Scalding Sea. Join my crew and you shall as well. A life of fortune and fame is offered to you, my boys. The only question is, are you man enough to take it?

==Al Adin==
"Allow me to get this correct: A lowly savage such as yourself, a mere wanderer of the Strobelands, seeks an audience with His Luminance to warn him of a Shardfall in three weeks' time upon His glorious City? You dare disturb him with the very idea of an occurrence deemed completely and utterly impossible by our Astronomers, the most expert and insightful in all of the land!?"

"E-exactly... I don't mean t'intrude, b-but..."

"SILENCE! There is reason His Luminance has dubbed His City the City of Eternal Shardlight. Not only do we lie under a stable Shardstream, but our storied Astronomers foresee a long and prosperous life for the City. I can understand if others such as yourself look upon the City with envy and desire, but I will not dare allow the hollow words of a Strober bring a most unnecessary panic upon the City! Guards!"

"I ain't tryin' to cause anything! I'm tryin' t'warn y'all b'fore-"

As the guard struck the young man in his dusty robes on the back of the head with the pommel of his blade, the advisor watched the youth collapse to the floor with a strained grunt. A lazy gesture wordlessly commanded the guards to take the unconscious youth to the dungeon for what amounted to treasonous conspiracy in the advisor's eyes. For too long has he worked to earn the trust of His Luminance and His Astronomers to get where he was today. He would not allow the hazardous words of a Strober urchin to set forth the demise of his standing and reputation.

Despite himself however, the worrisome man couldn't help but to wring his hands together once the guards were out of view. Even someone confident in the City's longevity as he remembers well the stories of the Phoenix's Awakening told by his elders. This most tragic tale resonates with every Citizen, high and low, as it does everyone else under the Shattered Heavens.

Those in the world before the Awakening were far more sophisticated than they, but they became too comfortable in the perceived permanence of their existence. They became the first to perish upon the Awakening, their magnificent realms but mere ruins in the Strobelands and the Twilight now. Perhaps the youth foresaw something the Astronomers cannot: the end of his people's Eternal Shardlight.

While the advisor's fears were stirred by the youth's drawled proclamation, his ambition drowned the fears. He kept the entire matter to himself, never spoke a word of it to his Liege or to the Astronomers...

Three weeks later, the youth's fears came to pass. An especially bright and vivid Shard streaked across the lavender sky that day toward the Shardstream above the City. It crashed into one of the Shards in the Stream, bringing forth the more brilliant flash of light since the Awakening, and the most terrifying roar since then as well. From a distance, it looked like shining needles rained down upon the City and its proximity over the next few days, sparking a most relentless inferno upon its populace. The compassionate youth and the ambitious advisor paid the ultimate price.

If you seek the Eternal Shardlight, it remains upon the City's ruins, still burning everstrong until all of the Citizens' ambition and excess wither away.

==The Runner==
''Running.''

''Seconds stretch into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. It feels like I've been running for so long, yet I know that there's no way that I could run for that long without my heart bursting first. At first I was looking behind me every so often to make sure that I was well ahead of my pursuers. Over time though, I gave up on looking back, only looking forward as I kept on running. I knew that if I did anything to stop myself from running as fast as I could, they would catch me.''

''In my incessant stride, I felt the heat of exertion ravage my frame, even as I slowly, but surely evaded the heat of the Shardstream. I slipped into the wilderness of the Strobelands, feeling the cold of the intermittent dusk lick greedily at my bronzed skin, envious of the Light I once soaked in. But even as the temperatures lowered around me, I felt more and more heat building up within me than I ever felt back in the City.''

''I had to escape the Light.''

----

Everyone was young once, myself included. And when you were young, there was a nigh irresistible propensity to do things that the elders told you not to do. Don't stray from your studies. Don't drink too much of the vintage. Don't bed her just for her looks. I was generally good with resisting such base temptations (with the exception of that one girl who I just couldn't pass up...). I couldn't waste years of training under the High Astronomer Merlophon himself just to live out a needless childhood. I had a lifetime of prestige and power ahead of me in its stead.

But I wasn't quite up to snuff with the High Astronomer's expectations. I would draw out countless Shard Charts to prove my worth. I would take on more difficult assignments than my peers, in hopes to become his protege. But the slightest flaw, the tiniest error would provoke His anger. His rage would burn a thousand times brighter than even the Shard of Gargonel as he would destroy my carefully crafted Charts with his crushing grip. He would then analogize my repeated failures with the utter and complete destruction of the City were I to be in the employ of His Luminance.

There was just something that I was missing from the hopelessly complex equations, something that made the paths in my Charts zig rather than zag. I needed an edge, something that would vault me above the work of my peers. It was then as I learned of one of the High Astronomer's dirtiest secrets.

While most of the populace knows the Astronomers as stodgy old men forever swathed in the most suffocating robes one could imagine under the never-setting Light of the Shardstream, it doesn't take much common sense to know that even said stodgy old men need to change clothes and bathe once in a while. With the rare exception of the High Astronomer, of course. Perhaps it was a perk of His lofty position, but He never used any of the communal facilities the rest of the Astronomers and their Students are provided by His Luminance.

But once, I saw a glint of light from the corner of my eye from outside my dormitory window - it takes a lot to notice something like that when your surroundings are bathed in a seemingly eternal Light. I took a closer look for just a moment and saw the High Astronomer without his robes upon His being. It wasn't the discovery that He was above using the communal baths which His underlings had to use. That was to be expected of someone of His station. But it was the starkness of the shimmering golden lines and glyphs which ran across the High Astronomer's umbral body. It was as if I had set eyes upon a progeny of the Phoenix itself.

----

''By now I have passed a traveling tribe of Strobes, panting raggedly as I forsaken the welcoming Light of the passing Shard under their constant vigil, leaving it for their taking. I'm sure that they were perplexed with my passing, but my plight is far more serious than their pursuit of the Light. The urge to keep running has far more importance than the fleeting warmth which will always evade the forever wandering Strobes.''

''By now, I have lost the footfalls of the tribe, the clamor of my pursuers, everything. The only sound now was the hostile winds of the approaching Twilight muffling out my weary grunts, my muted cries, the stomps of my calloused feet against the dead earth. What was it that I was running from was entirely beyond me now. All I knew was that I had to keep running away from where it all began. In a world obsessed with seeking the vestiges of cerulean heavens long since shattered by the Phoenix's Awakening, I must have been the only one who was straying away from the Light, trying to dim it within and without.''

''The Light had to die.''

----

There was only one person whom I could trust my discovery with, my best friend Alair. While Students of the Astronomers generally don't make contact outside of their cloisters, we do get visits from our colleagues, the Alchemists. While the Astronomers discover the power of the Shards, the Alchemists craft the power of the Shards into the City's blessings. Alair was one of the brightest Students of Alchemy who I often worked with when crafting my Shard Charts. He also seated a bit of a dislike for the Astronomers in general, given their political pandering, but he seemed to trust me well enough.

Upon my description of the High Astronomer's glowing body, it only took Alair a couple moments before he came up with an explanation.

Stardust.

Any Astronomer or Alchemist, even a plain Citizen knows about Stardust. It's common knowledge that there are varying sizes of Shards, from those that can eclipse the size of the City in the case of the Shard of Gargonel, to those finer than a grain of sand but equally as potent when collected together. In small amounts however, the strength of the golden powder is only enough to where it will cause brief hallucinations when ingested. It isn't much of a vice though, as too much will cause the body to boil from the inside out from the concentrated heat and Light - a gruesome fate for those desperate for a slightly longer round of visions and sensations.

As our skin is resistant to the Light for prolonged periods of time, it is also resistant to small amounts of Stardust. As Alair explained, the resistance is usually enough to take in larger amounts of the powder before the high is reached. However, contact with the skin has a potentially beneficial side effect: a stronger understanding of the nature of the Shards, as if the user felt the movement of the Shards themselves. But that also wears off once the Stardust passes off of the skin. Unless it was put into the skin itself with no where to pass off to.

This is where things get especially difficult. And illegal. Brandishers, while commonly called upon to imbue symbols of reputation and significance upon their clients, are also heavily regulated. There is strong regulation of Brandery, especially when it comes to the use of Stardust in their inks. Extremely tiny amounts were allowed to make the inks brighter. Moderate amounts led to scarring burns where the inks are applied. Larger amounts led to irreversible damage of the skin. And woe be to the client who bled too much when the ink was laid upon the skin.

There are stories of Strobes who take into their skin a great deal of Phoenix's Blood - a mixture of ink with unfathomably high concentrations of Stardust - as a rite of passage. Survivors eventually become the Shamans of their tribes, able to predict the movement of the Shards without the sophisticated tools of the Astronomers, while those who die in the process are merely chalked up as unfit to be in the tribe in the first place.

Given all that Alair expounded upon me, it was evident that the High Astronomer had more than just a passing curiosity of Stardust and Phoenix's Blood. He partook the trial Himself and survived to become more than just an Astronomer - He became a veritable God among men. There was only one way I was ever going to meet or exceed His expectations, and I might not live long enough to get there.

But I was young once, and I had a nigh irresistible propensity to go through with this.

----

''The traces of the faintest violet in the sky soon disappeared behind me, leaving me to the inky darkness of the Void ahead of me. I embraced the black as it did myself. As the world around me got colder still, I felt far more vigorous than I ever did under the Light. The combination of my sun-soaked heritage and the persistent urge to run was too much to resist, instinctively charting my own way through a myriad of otherwise unintelligible geography. My eyes eventually learned to adjust to the abject nothingness around me, devoid of others, devoid of life, devoid of Light.''

''The Light was no more.''

----

For as much help as Alair was with his information, and his sheer knowledge of Alchemy, he wouldn't dare commit his abilities to my ambitions. He was just as focused on his studies and his own hopeful rise to prominence as I was, perhaps even more so at this point. I had eschewed the nourishing hope to rise to greater heights. I have replaced it with a relentless guarantee to get there in its stead. I would set forth the fall of the Golden God among Astronomers and replace his existence with my own. I would undergo the Rite of Phoenix's Blood and become one with the Shards. His Luminance would seek no further expert on the matter than myself.

It took me the greater part of the year, working a steadily growing network of connections whilst maintaining my duties as a Student under the High Astronomer. But I eventually got a meeting with a passing Strobe merchant who also happened to be a renowned Master Brandisher. At first, he wouldn't budge to my demands, claiming that the Rite was only exclusive to his tribe. He wouldn't dare defile the sacred art of the Rite for a Basker's whims.

However, I had come prepared for this.

I had worked with other Alchemists during the year, Alchemists less scrupulous than Alair. While Stardust is natural in the world, a skilled Alchemist can purify the golden powder into a concoction far more appropriate for Phoenix's Blood than anything a Strobe can rustle up in the wild. Little by little, I would come into possession of enough of the stuff to make for a convincing trade with a passing Strobe. Especially one who knows how to use it.

Half of it would be used for the Rite. The other half would go with the Strobe.

The deal was made. There was no going back now. I was soon in the wagon that the Master doubled as a Brandery parlor. I endured the most indescribable pain that no one should ever go through. It was as if a weaponsmith worked white-hot needles of steel through every inch of my quivering body, coursing through my mind, body, and soul all at once. As prepared as I was to make the trade, there was absolutely no way I could have prepared for this experience.

Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Even as the deed was done and I laid recovering in my dormitory (I still have no idea how I got up there,) the pain continued to work its way ever deeper into my being. I was surely not going to make it through the Rite in one piece. On the third day, the pain seemed to suddenly disappear, only to become replaced with a rush of information into my mind. The rush was painful, but it was more... enlightening than anything else. A brand new exhilaration filled my being, a new feeling which overcame any and all discouragement the High Astronomer could ever dish out at me. Soon enough, I felt the warmth of the Shard of Gargonel radiate from my breast. I could even swear that my heartbeat became that of the Phoenix itself.

----

''There was no more Light for miles around me. I had finally slowed down to a stop to take in the awe of the Twilight's splendor. The sheer silence enveloping me would be deafening to a disoriented Citizen's ears, threatening to those of an alert Strobe.''

''It was then as the darkness surrounding me was broken by a pair of crimson eyes, seemingly piercing through the Void to peer into my spirit. It was undoubtedly the eyes of one of Them, a being who was human once before being taken by the thrall of the Light and transformed into a monster of pure hunger. Imbued with so much of the Light throughout its existence, the monster's eyes emanated with a unholy light all of its own. As more of the eyes appeared in the darkness, their collective Ghostlight illuminated my now being, worn to a mere sack of skin and bones from my running, paled to the milkiest white from my escape from the Light.''

''I had become one with the Twilight.''

----

I opened my eyes in horror as the bliss began to subside. Great pillars of flame emerged from the ancestral marks placed upon me by the Master Brandisher. My dormitory was ablaze from the inferno, a cacophony of terrified voices washing with the ebb and flow of the wind whipped up by the intense fire. For some reason, the flames didn't affect me in the least, my movements seemingly increasing the danger of the blaze exponentially. I tried to make my way through the labyrinthine halls of the complex, incidentally setting more of the place on fire. For just a moment I basked in a perverted satisfaction with bringing down what I saw as a hypocritical institution, tasked with the survival of the City, but in truth seeking to further their own ambitions.

That was until I saw the contorted face of Alair before one of my flares devoured him whole, leaving only a charred husk of his former self mere seconds afterwards. I must have stood there in the hall, looking blankly into a self-aware abyss, my fires raging without my knowledge for hours before the instinct kicked in, the true, metaphysical heat of the Light driving me away from it. I bursted forth from the wall in a smoldering fireball, ravaging my way through the City until I broke free from the main gate.

The urge to run became stronger than any of the Phoenix's Blood that coursed through me. I had to run until the Light died. Until it became no more. I couldn't return until I became one with the Twilight. By then, I knew that my fate would be consigned to They who would see me as the ultimate sacrifice to prolong their Ghostlight.

But inside, my Light resurfaced. I had indeed become one with the Phoenix.

==The Other Egg==
I can’t think of a time I didn’t dread Blackrise at least a little. Even now that I’m older, it gives me little tingles down my fingers to see it crest the horizon. Every time it comes around, blighting our skies the same time each year, the same doomsayers wheel out the same tirades from the same street corners. The Holy City chokes with smoke as people light fires on their rooftops in the hopes of driving the Black Moon away.

When I was seven or eight, I would spend a lot of time in my father’s workshop. He was a sculptor and used a lot of different materials. I’d poke around and ask him what all the different rocks and metals he was using were. One day, he was fashioning something out of obsidian, this little figurine of an Astronomer at his astrolabe. That memory always rushes back when I look at the Black Moon, hanging behind Gargonel. A sphere of obsidian huger than I could possibly fathom.

Walk down any street in the city during Blackrise and you’ll come away with a dozen theories about what the Black Moon is and how it’ll invariably kill us all. Everyone has a theory, especially the people who don’t know what they’re talking about. There are two really popular ones, though. The first is that the Black Moon is another Egg, like the Sun had been, and this Black Egg will eventually hatch. When that happens, the world ends. The other school of thought agrees that the Black Moon is an egg, but believes that the creature inside is dead and that’s why it’s black; if it were another Phoenix, the egg would shine.

I’m just out for supplies, but I have to leave extra time. Everything goes into overdrive during Blackrise. The preachers flood the streets and the wine merchants do their best business all year as people try to find one escape or another. We take a lot of comfort in the scale of Gargonel, the Shard that keeps up safe and warm. It’s supposed to be the single biggest Shard known to exist, big as whole continents. But when the Blackrise comes, the sky is filled with a looming black shape that reminds us that even great Gargonel is but a Shard.

I pass by a wild-eyed man on a street corner. He’s standing on an overturned fruit crate and his lips are flecked with crazed spittle. He’s shouting that this is the year that the Second Hatching will occur, that the Black Egg will split wide open and some malevolent evil will come out. I’m glad when the crowd drowns him out.

When I’m at the market, where the Twilight traders and the Strobers peddle their wares from rented stalls just inside the city gates, the crowds are even thicker. Everyone’s pointedly not looking up, but still talking about what’s up there. It’s strange. Blackrise is about the only time of year that it’s considered acceptable to talk about The Other Egg. It’s as if we’re afraid we might draw its attention.

I find the stall I’m after, a quiet little stand literally right against the wall. Karos is a Strober who sometimes brings me knick-knacks from out in the night. His tribe sometimes chance over old ruins, cities from before the Hatching. Some of them are mass graveyards, but even the ones where the population managed to escape to safety are filled with discarded goods. Him and I have an arrangement – I pay him for any old bits of art he can find. Karos shakes my hand when I approach him. He vanishes around the back to get what he’s found for me.

While he’s away, I take a moment and look upwards. It’s a clear day, and bright, but the sky is menacing. Because there It is, hanging silently behind the Shard. Perfectly round, shimmering in Gargonel’s reflecting glory. As I look at it, I can almost feel a pull on my chest. I hear astronomers talk about how when things get as big as Shards, sometimes their hugeness can pull other things. Looking at the Other Egg, I can believe it. 

It’s surface shimmers hypnotically. For a moment, I almost believe that its shell is translucent thin, and I see something moving under the surface, writhing. 

Then Karos comes with his gewgaws and snaps me out of it. I toss him some coin and head home. I try to eat, but find my appetite is gone.

That night, all I can find in me to sculpt is black spheres. 

I hate Blackrise.

==Excerpt from ''Darkland Denizens: A Case Study''==
I can still remember it like it was just yesterday, and really, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it. 

I was...I was a new guard. The merchant convoy had stopped near Tenrec ‘an when I heard that’d be journeying to The Holy City and would get there in roughly three months, I jumped at the chance to leave that shithole behind. I woke up early, bathed for the first time in weeks, combed my hair and packed my bag with everything I needed. My ma’ had died a few years back from some STD the healers couldn’t fix, and my dad had been some young Practitioner new to the city looking for a quick and cheap fuck that I’d never met, so besides my landlord and a few people who I worked with at the factory I had no-one else to leave behind....it was an easy choice, really. I thought a change of scenery would do me good, maybe help me find a nice girl and a comfy job, finally get my due, y’know?

Well, when I showed up, they checked me for my fitness, made me do some races and the like with the other sorry bastards who’d turned up, and gave me a, em, ‘quick’ background check before I kicked everyone else’s ass sides’ two in the tests and they gave us a club and some leather armor, the offer of shit pay and promised food while we were with ‘em. I accepted, threw my bag into one of the soldier carriages, and we were gone within the week.

The first few days were sorta fun, the merchants were pleasant if a bit snotty, the other two new guys, Rob an’ Nale, were good fellas, friendly as you could hope, and the older ones kept to ‘emselves 'cept when they were teachin' us how to hit things till they died. I swear, I thought I knew how to fight beforehand, but those old bastards were tougher than goddamn steel and could have you on the ground gaspin' for air before you knew they were flippin' ye’ over. Anyway....we were makin' good speed, all things considered, and in three weeks the convoy hadn’t been bothered by a single bandit or the like (though why one would try to take on twenty carriages and the same number of armed men I’ll never now), but then a nasty storm managed ta’ fuck up a few of the carriages by tippin' ‘em over and we fell behind while fixin' ‘em. So we decided that instead of taking the long, hard route over the Ansei Mountains, we’d take the less used, short one through a valley that twisted through ‘em. That....that was when it all started to go wrong.

Y’see, as soon as we got into that fuckin' thing, we started to hear stuff. Not normal things, like birds, or even wolves...but quick things. Little sounds in otherwise silent nights, that coulda’ been leaves bein' rustled by something small or puddles being splashed by something poundin' through them. We found a lot a’ dead things too, from a few dears that looked half torn open half sawed in two, ta’ birds with their necks twisted and stomachs gone scattered all over clearings in the brush...

The sides a’ the valley didn’t help, spite a’ the ton of plants an’ ivies growin all over it, and the trees an stream winding through it, the thing was thirty metres across most of the time and had steep edges, so any noise we made echoed around for ages. Ya’ couldn’ talk at one end of the convoy without bein' heard at the other, and sometime we heard things bein said in a language no-one understood. When it started to rain again, and the river burst it’s banks after two days of it constantly, we found a cave.

By then, we were all goin' a bit crazy – I was twitchin' at every noise I heard, Nale was swearin' and constantly and was so bloody angry he’d tried fightin' with everyone in the convoy at least twice, and Rob was just cutting himself off from everyone – he refused to eat when we did, and had handed in his resignation (Really just a short talk wi’ the head merchant, a reasonable fella’ called Eustace that seemed to be the only one not simmerin' with somethin') for when this was all over. Apparently, he’d had enough and wanted out. I couldn’t blame him, and after the two days of pissin' rain, was thinkin' of doin' the same – I’d been considerin' stayin' on past the Holy City to see where else we’d go, but couldn’t stomach the thought of it anymore. So, squeezing everyone into the cave and settin' up some bedsheets and a night watch, we left the caravans out with the goods covered and me an Rob sat guard until it was time to wake up the next guards on duty so we could get some shut eye.

I leaned into a nice little cranny in the rock, jus big enough to sit in, and rob went to walk outside. I tried to stay awake, I really did!, but I was wrecked after all of the walkin' and ended up droppin' off fairly quick. I think that was what saved me, I was so quiet and my armor made me blend in with the rock, so they couldn’t see me while they could get Rob. Everyone else, gathered roun' smolderin' fires on white linen and sweatin', got their attention. I woke up to the horses actin' skittish, they were sorta movin' back an forth and lookin' in the cave, and then it started. I heard someone – Eustace, I think – scream a bit before a loud crack, and then everythin' went to Hell.

Little white things that looked like they'd once been men, hunched over on their hands and covered in pussin blisters all over their skin,<sup>1</sup> were tearin the place apart. They were growlin like animals, screamin and clawin everythin they saw, an some of em were even clawin their way up the walls somehow ta get away from any of the guards tryin to club em. Merchants were tryin ta run away, but as soon as they got near the exit more of the fuckers poured in so there was about two dozen in all, and started rippin them apart. I saw a few of them tearin arms off the fat bastards and beatin them with em until the screamin stopped, before they’d started chewin on the fuckin things like it was corn on the cob! The guards had only barely managed to grab their weapons beside their beds when they woke up and were doin a little better, they were fighters after all, but they were still hurt. Some had a few nasty bruises and bite marks, others were missin fingers and were bleedin like crazy, but the pale little things, weren’t even hurt! They were millin back and forth t confuse ‘em, pullin at legs from behind to trip em and swarmin on top of any bastard unlucky enough to fall.....Hell, I saw one get a sword through the chest and all it did was shriek louder before pullin it out and started to swing it around like it was nothing....really, even if I’d been able to get my legs to work, I’da done nothing but die, so when it was finally over and the things were busy pickin the bones, and I’d stopped cryin to meself long enough to calm down, I looked at the horses.

Only three of the older ones, still tied to carriages too heavy for them to pull alone and with frayed ropes,were left, and they’d probably be next, so now was my last chance to get away....so, I bolted. I ran as fast as I could to the things when the monsters were all at the back of the cave, tore the rope holdin one of ‘em to the carriage in half with my hand, jumped on and beat it across the arse so it’d finally run. It galloped off, and I had te’ hold on to the damn reigns while my feet fell out from under me before I could get in the saddle, and it was only a few hours later when the old thing finally keeled over after runnin from the things that followed us flat out for near two hours that I finally let go. I ran the rest of the way out of the valley, only stopping once to grab some more water and goin in my pants rather than takin a lav break, for another day. I collapsed when I was safely out of it and under the Prime<sup>2</sup> before I took a break again. I walked to the City for another week with short breaks, collapsed at the gate, and told the officials what had happened when I came to a week later in a hospital.

They sent in some of the Army and a few Alchemists before purging all the little monsters they found a month later, apparently cloud cover a month ago on the other side of the Ansei had gotten so thick with the storms that the little fuckers had managed to make it from the Darklands away from the Prime to the valley, and got into it. They found everyone’s bodies, or what was left, and gave ‘em a proper burial a week later.

That’s really all I gots to say on the matter, anything else you’ll want to know about the slaughter in Blood Valley’s only kept in records I can’t get into, ‘cause it’s about the investigation. I..I’m sorry, it’s jus’....it’s jus tha it brings back a lot a’ bad mem'ries for fer me’.....<sup>3</sup>

Ed. Notes:

<sup>1</sup>:Vampires, according to official reports, a supposedly insane outcast branch of the Soulshard Worshippers that rarely are found out of the Darklands.

<sup>2</sup>:A colloquial term for the Holy city’s Shardstream commonly used in Terec)

<sup>3</sup>:The interviewee began break down in tears at this point of the interview, and has refused to comment on the matter since, claiming to have “Finally gottin it off me chest”

The interviewee’s name, and the last names of any victims, have been kept redacted to preserve their privacy.

''Published in Year 734 PPB (Post-Phoenix Birth), in “Darkland Denizens: A Case Study, Part 3” by award winning author Neal Geimen, Pufflin Book House.''

[[Category:Homebrew Settings]]