Out of all the realms under the ever-stretching skies, I’ve been burdened with the wildest. Half my dominion lies strangled in vines; every root and rock conspires against my claim.
My men are too weak-hearted to gain control of the old ruins. A trap laid in a watery tomb sends them scattering like vermin. No one among them dares lay hammer to the temples, to grind them to dust so that order may reign once more. It may be wiser to turn eastward… the peaks aren’t haunted by memory.
Meanwhile, my dear siblings have summoned me to the annual ball – a tiresome charade of civility, forcing me to leave my throne unguarded. Do they not see the peril? My borders serve as the only defense against the conniving trickster gods! Mayhaps their invitation is yet another trap, another tomb to drown in…!
…Foolish thought. The vines enrapture my mind, wrapping me in paranoia. I shall attend, as duty commands – and I will urge them to build ballistas, not “Night Sanctums”. Offering wisdom to a wordless horde… Truly, my kin have grown indulgent, bewitched by the Ancients’ secrecy.
I must rest. Before dawn, I shall attend the audience of a wanderer who’s wormed his way into my court. He claims to bear a gift from beyond. I will hear him. He promises diversion.
— Lord Vorgoth, Guard of the NorthThe wanderer arrived, as promised – a gust of freezing winds trailing him. As he entered my throneroom, an unsettling mist lingered where he stepped.
His face was cloaked to hide a ghastly sickness… a kind I had never laid eyes on before. His flesh was pale and tinged blue; his face lacked symmetry as if he had suffered a stroke in years past - or as if he had been assembled, not born. Such a pitiful being.
Thin hands held out a bright blue flask, shimmering in the candlelight. A weapon, he called it. A secret… hidden from us by the Ancients.
He needed not say more. I had long been aware that the tricksters only reveal what they please.
I grasped the flask and I gulped down the mystery inside. Dust motes began to swirl at the edges of my vision. Mist rose around me, enveloping each breath I took… crept inside me, breaching my heart, my skull, and settled behind my eyes. It was pulling. Pulling upwards, towards my eyelids, fluttering, til my feet left the palace carpet.
Levitation. I floated above the ruins, above the vermin, the cowards, the liars.
Once I reunited with the familiar ground below, the wanderer flashed a smile. He had given me both means and reason to strike.
My hands shake, still… but I must grip my blade firmly.
— Lord Vorgoth, Guard of the NorthSuch a trivial pursuit, now that I’ve tasted eternity… but I did not go without a plan, nor a convincing argument.
Just one drop of the Elixer to sweeten the wine. That was all it took for Gormander, old fool, to call forth his advisers and engineers. They may caution him against building the Elixer Wells at first, but their words will wither soon enough.
Jezmina, however, could only be silenced through a swift backhand. The brat still believes the Ancients may have good reason to hide such power… A private contractor will build the Wells in her stead, should she not oblige. Once her yammering faded into weeping, I forced her eyes open and told her the truth amongst lies.
The Ancients HID this from us!
They’re sleeping snakes, and all but me are too fearful to wake them! Cowards, I say! Rats before Dragons in disguise, I tell you!
We are right to defend ourselves. Dig just a little deeper – What else lies hidden below?
Will Earth spill her secrets if we split her tongue, crack her own, leave her bleeding?
I trust only the mist under the wanderer’s hood, the twitch of his shadow, the gaping of his hundred mouths
He can make us rise
Can make us levitate
Can change the mice to men
— Lord Vorgoth, Guard of the NorthPerhaps “Architect” is too grand a term – the blueprints were provided by the traveler, after all. The engineers and builders only have to fall in line.
The monolithic structure structure is twofold, stretching both towards the setting sun and the sleeping core. A hollow crown reigns above to imprison within it the light of the fading moon. Its shadow is as black as its stone.
From below rises the fabled mist. Most don’t see it, or pretend not to. When I brought attention to it, the workers fell silent. The “Architect” stuttered under his breath, gaze averted… his lowered head betrayed his words. He mistakes me for a madman.
My wanderer came forth from my right side and spoke to break the silence.
“A bit of mist is to be expected. No harm will come from it. In fact, we may welcome its arrival.” The words echo in my head. We may welcome its arrival.
Yes, perhaps it will guide us. Guide our hands.
Our shaking hands
Ever shaking, leaving traces. Traces of a ghostly silhouette, reverberating
A wraith chained to its own afterimage, chasing it, spinning a vignette of fading blue
With eyelids pulled towards the moon
Telling truth from lies, a floating spiral of the past
And preset, and future, and eternity
We may welcome its arrival
— Lord Vorgoth, Guard of the North
