Vescrutia: Legacy

Erosia, a land suculent in natural resorces. It was an exceptionally healthy land thriving off the amazing energy source that the roots of the massive tree whose name she had come to learn. The town itself might have been... humble but the land. Oh was the land... juicy.

"Azlan"

It gave life and literal support to the islands connected to it. There was once a time when she knew much of the lands of Vescrutia. A time when she could tell you the names of thousands of plants and animals. The cultures that grew around their natural gifts. Much of that world had changed; the last time she walked these lands, they were ripe with war, chaos, and destruction. Yet, when she tried to remember her original ties, all she could conjure were half-memories, murky images, and voices. Nothing more, it was as if...

"Aaazzllaannn"

It rolled off her tongue, just echoing its name sent a thrill of inquiry through her body. There was an incredible power behind its wooden shell. And she fully intended to drain it dry.

"Hehehe...HAHAHAHAH!"

Her cackle echoed throughout her cottage, a marvelous creation that took her quite some time to build. It required a specific... touch. One that might attract the wrong eyes should she be caught in her dabbling. The locals have told her much of this place in the year it had been since she arrived. Erosia was not the only place where civilization thrived, and yet moraless vagabonds were ripe. A realm where the strong devoured the weak. Where the underlying fear of deception and betrayal was always hovering in the air, at least it had been before up until a year ago when a mysterious illness began infecting the people. A most terrible affliction, one that seemed to turn its victims into onyx-colored husks before ultimately killing them. Named by the locals as "The Black Kiss" about its modes of transmission. Physical touch, even as gentle and simple as a kiss, could be deadly.

"It's true name however..."

She said as she approached a desk that had several open books on it—leagues of literature that covered everything from local herbology to the tomes of the island's ancient lore and beliefs. Her garment was her usual solid black dress, which hugged her curvature wonderfully. Like living onyx, she moved through the space. Her movements led her to a book that was the same shade of black as her dress. It was open, revealing a plant.

"The Black Night"

A curse in liquid form, an insidious blend of alchemy and forbidden magic. One that was laying the foundation for her ambitions. To escape this wretched land once and for all.

"That...man pig who summoned me has proven himself useless. It is the nature of his kind, after all."

She would lift the book, turning its pages to sketches of a tree, parts of which were decorated like shrines.

"The boy, however...he may have his uses yet. A true living Venkage, one could not ask for a better pawn. He will take the only ones capable of standing in my way far from here. The rite will be completed. Something within Azlan's slumbers, something that feels so very familiar to me. No doubt it is power."

Her wicked smile widened.

"Once I am free, truly free, my work can begin. A blanket of black, a flood of onyx."

Her aura began to palpitate as the dastardly smoke of her essence began to seep through, coalescing around her.

" And his soul...yes... that light. That insidious glaring light. How pleasing it will be to see it snuffed out finally."


*Knock Knock*

"Lady Beneva, please, it's my husband."

The shadow stopped and began to recede into her body slowly. Her evil smile became a sad one of irritation, like a child whose fun had been interrupted by a parent with rules. The intensity in her soul clawed at the walls of her fleeting sense of purpose. To say hell with ceremony and massacre the whole of them would surely make this process much faster.

I...must not indulge...

Death would come, but not before its appointed time. Until then, her role as a healer and caregiver must be played flawlessly. She would sigh deeply, walking over to her mirror. She would take in the glory of her natural beauty, smirking slightly before waving her hand over her reflection. By the time the wave ended, her form had shifted. Her hair color changed from pitch black to platinum blonde. Her black attire is now flowing white and gold garbs. Her image radiated purity and the desire to care for and love her fellow man. Befitting of a healer. The interior of her space also changed, going from an elaborately decorated lab to a humble healer cottage filled with herbs, plants, and spices of all kinds.

"Oh, my visitors...one second!"

She said as she neared the door—another day of saving lives for her own nefarious desires.

She straightened her dress ridding it of wrinkles fore blowing herself a sultry kiss in the mirror. God was it a crime to be so beautiful and so evil. As if she stepped on air she glided across the floor teaching the door placing one hand on the knob and the other she twinkled her fingers closing her black book casting a illusion spell on it that made it look like just any old book. She cleared her throat before opening the door .

“Ah Delilah, Gerald to what do I owe this-“

Delilah was a brawny and ornery woman for icing the door open.

“Cut the shit Beneva, it’s back and it’s even worse than before”

Sophia’s eyes twinkled with just a spark of ignition, stuffing down the urge to slaughter this beast of a woman go dare to order her around…but no not yet. They all had their uses even this boar.

“Why of course, come in quickly, lay him there”

There were three well made beds. As Erosia sole healer many folks came to her for aid. Practically every ache and pain, strange tickle or weird itch. Her poultices able to cure virtually any illness save for those most terminal. It was not her talent that made folks uneasy with her methods but the fact that she never asked for anything for her services. In a cutthroat place such a this generosity was the most suspicious quality to have.

“A single drop every six hours.”

“We followed your gods damn instructions to the letter WITCH!”

As Sophia reached down to help him get adjusted to the bed she could see the fear in Delilah’s eyes, the feeling of loosing the only thing she had worth living on this wretched rock as so close to dying. Her rage born from heartache. How she wished she could bottle it and pour it over ice to savor the taste of their misery for eternity. But, no, she could not remain on this mire any longer than necessary.

“Delilah…”

She said kneeling down to the worried wife’s level her eyes locked with hers her gaze was firm, unwavering with resolve and yet the faintest trace of softness. She placed her hand onto her.

“I am not your enemy. Rest assured I will do everything in my power to save your husband.”

Delilah’s eyes swelled with tears damn this woman. Her bravado shattering like glass disarming her entirely.

“I…I don’t now how this has happened. The last few months his symptoms have been vanishing he was healing talking and even started back walking. Then a few days ago he just comely relapsed and now it’s like he’s a shell again. “

Deliah sobbed, she was a hardened beast of a woman with blood as thick as iron and a demon’s as tough as nails. But even she could not fight the fear of loose mf the one good she found is this life. She placed her hand of Deliah’s attempting to comfort her.

“ T…Thank you, Lady Beneva. In a world clad in darkness it brings even my wretched heart some solace to know someone like you is here on Rudral. He would’ve died long ago if not for you…forgive my outburst.”

Sophia should her head is dismissal.

“Please think nothing of it… I know full well”

Her eyes for the slightest moment conveyed genuine feeling.

“The void of loosing one you love…”

For a moment, Sophia disguise destabilized as her amber eyes flushed with rage, a sharp pain stung her head . She grabbed her face with her right hand as glimpses of mages plagued her mind. A man with short black hair standing next to one with flowing red locs with wings like a bat.

“Ngh! What, what is this?”

She thought Just as swiftly as it came another feeling flooded her. The blackness of smoke, the bleakness of fog, settling her mind once more. These episodes were happening more often now. The hour was approaching…she needed to double her efforts. This place, it was fucking with her.

Deliah with a worried look tried to console the healer. Sophia raised her hand in protest.

“I’m fine…seems I’ve been staying up to late reading bo—“

“Grrrraaaa!!”

Gerald cried out and began shaking violently. Delilah, rushed to his bed side. Sophia would stand gathering herself. She walked over to her table littered with herbs and all kinds of other reagents.

“Gerald! Gerald”

“He’s convulsing, a seizure which means the illness is reaching his brain…”

Delilah grabbed her mouth in disbelief.

“I can stabilize him but I need Vita root. Fresh, you know of it?”

Her words fell on deaf ears however Delilah , over come with grief and emotion could focus on nothing but her ailing love. Sophia grabbed a mortar and pestle. Swiftly she added a few herbs a drop of a green liquid and readily mixed it other.

“Delilah! Vita Root, do you know where to get it!? “

Her raised voices snapped Delilah out of her state of shock. The woman rose from her husband’s bed side readjusting her blade. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she resolved herself to leave.

“Vita Root, it grows just outside of town.”

She said as she began to leave the hut. Just as she opened the door her eyes locked with Sophia.

“Tell that bastard if he dies and leaves me on the rock alone I’ll bring him back and off him myself.”

Sophia nodded with a warm smile and with that Delilah left. The moment the door closed her smile twisted into one that no good could come from.

The vibrant lightfall of the sun had begun to seep away, inviting the grueling cover of night. How glorious it was, how the darkness blanketed this land under its umbral embrace. She never imagined such power locked away in a realm unknowable to all but those who live here. It was something out of a prehistoric novel riddled with ancient monstrosities whose footsteps shift the plates beneath the planet's crust and whose breath set the world around them in flames. And at the literal root of all the untapped potential here, Azlan stood tall, ebbing waves of mystic power that no doubt contrived to the bustling life forms of Rudral.

At first, she thought it was a cursed karmic joke, her being bound to this otherwise lawless land. But as she watched the effects of her course ravage this vagabond before her from the inside out, she could feel nothing more than an unprecedented notion of promise. Yes, Rudral had turned out to be the perfect place for her to regain her former majesty. For more than a year, she has played the coy healer, soothing the aches and ale of the troubled pets of Erosia. Only to be the very same witch to sire an insufferable illness that warps the very body and soul of the infected, priming them for her sacrilegious rite. One that would finally see her free of this sunken paradise.

“I will not beg your forgiveness, Gerald. It is the fate of the weak to feed the ambitions of the strong. I can offer you but one solace …”

She kneeled closer to him, and her eye's bright, benevolent glow shifted to a deep, piercing manger that hummed solemnly with an insidiously ambitious glow. Around her, a smoky blackness began to manifest, covering the windows with a frosty black condensation that barred them from being seen from the outside. The darkness rising around her began to coagulate beside her, becoming amorphous, its consistency like ooze, hellfyre. The blaze of the Nether, a flame of death and insufferable decay, is usable only by the highest echelons of demons. Such was the nature of the being that emerged from the now refined pyr.

The Black Knight

Its form is darker than even the encroaching night that befell the island. A void where its face should be. Long, slender arms that belied the strength they held, standing more than 7 feet tall. It was more archaic than even she and was why she survived the Nether. In exchange for allowing the creature to use her body as a vessel, she was given a profane blessing. The dark knowledge of the Orphic. Moving darkness, living smoke, masters of demonic magic. It was it who taught her the Rite she was to perform, a diabolical ritual that had never been successfully done. From the chaos of its conception, a new world order would arise and a world of eternal black. But first, her freedom, one that only it could grant, but its hunger must be sated first, its power returned to it.

“Your death will be part of something so great…so grand that even the gods themselves will shudder when faced with it…”


"D-Delilah"

He murmured through his saliva. His eyes reflected sheer terror, barely cognizant of what was happening. The cursed blood in his veins sapping away at his strength. A man once vibrant and robust withered away by the black magics she commanded. The black curse symptoms are like that of a virus. Fever ravages the body, burning from within, while dark, pustule-ridden boils marr the skin, oozing with a thick, blackened pus. The afflicted suffered relentless bouts of nausea and delirium, their bodies wasting away as if consumed by an unseen menace. All for the sake of her ascension. Soon, the feast of this fodder would be heard to savor.

"How sweet, he calls to her. You must love her, so use the last breath to beckon her name. But it is only I who can free you, in fact....free the whole of Erosia."

The Demon would take his right hand and penetrate Sophia's chest. Her mouth would begin to ooze black blood as she went in for a gentle kiss upon Gerald's infected lips. Just as her lips went to meet his...

*ccccrrreeakkk*

"Lady Beneva, excuse me..I...left my...satchel."

Her words seemed to flee from her as Deliah laid eyes on the harrowing sight before her. Before the shock of what she was witnessing would fade and be prompted to scream, a strong gust of wind snapped that door shut. She went for the knob but found it impossible to open, as if an unseen force was keeping it sealed. Her breath became heavy, the shadow of the Black Knight dwarfing her in stature, casting a veil of black over her face. Only the wafting luminance of the dimmed candles allowed her to see.

"L-Lady B..Beneva...What.... what's happened to you?....GERALD!"

The Demon slowly removed its hand from her, spilling her vile blood upon the floor. Slowly, her eyes rested on Deliah, whose face was twisted in absolute despair.

"Well, well...it seems I've been found out. Still, I must say, you couldn't have picked a more fabulous time."

Her voice, light as the gentle breeze, playful as a newly born wisp, began to crack at the end of her sentence, becoming one more sultry with a slightly more profound, more regal tone. One that Deliah could associate with nobility. She rose from her kneeled position; the hole in her chest where the creature's hand was was hollowed out completely. Through the wound, Deliah could see her husband riddled with dastardly pustules.

"I had grown tired of this facade."

The bold blonde hue of her hair magically began to shift, becoming instead a somber midnight black. Sleek with a subtle sheen of mystic allure. The sullied white robe stained by the black blood of hellfyre singed away before the shadows began wrapping around her. They hugged her curvaceous frame as her eyes slid softly into slits.

"So all the rumors were true..."

The hole in the witch's chest began to close slowly, bubbling together. Soon, the mound of flesh would smooth out like the hole was never there.

"Hm? What's the matter, Deliah? My, you don't look so well. "

She walked slowly; with each step she took, Deliah took that many back. The darkness got thicker and thicker, and the light from the candles nearly smothered under the umbral majesty's influence. Deliah gripped her blade, poised to strike, as the tears ran down her face.

"We...we came to you...we brought our ailing, our dying...our loved ones. And you...."

Deliah's cracking voice was breaking under the weight of her despair. It's fragmented notes of confusion and sorrow like a ballad of joy for the dark sorceress. Delilah, The woman who had once been noted for her exceptional skill with a blade now had begun withering away. Having been trapped here after the fall of Arcturus. But the flame of a warrior burned in her heart still, her pride as a former knight, a defender of the realm, scathing as it began to eat away at her sorrow, inflaming the emotions into a righteous blaze of silvery vengeance.

Sophia's eyes sparked with a glimmer of intrigue: a beautiful thing, the human spirit. A vat of infinite potential just waiting to be unlocked, yet shackled, it often remained, chained by concepts such as morality: frivolous fabrications, the notions of justice, love, trust, and righteousness. The only law, the only rule to life, was to survive it. The means hardly mattered so long as the end was reached...she did not create the world to be this way. It was simply the way the universe operated, good, evil; there were no such things—only those who had the power to move the direction of the world in their favor. Power was the only constant, the only absolute.

" Sure, life in Erosia had always been challenging, but we learned to live with it; some of us even managed to find a little good on this hell rock. Before you came and brought this plague, we at least had a chance! Beneva, I...I...."

Sophia's smile became so wickedly wide it. Yes, that burning, searing passion, ambition, its raw, undiluted essence was like sweet succor. Deliah's naten would burst from her, erupting in a valorous silver aura before she grabbed a longsword at her hip. Her eyes flickered in and out with a faint silver. The flare of this aura stirred something in Sophia, something not like the darkness that flowed through her, something akin to a scent you can't quite place or a word that lays on the tip of the tongue—this minute moment of hesitation sparked the warrior in Deliah to emerge once more taking full advantage of the small laps, lunging herself at Sophia with enough force to splinter the wood of the cabin beneath her. The demon beside her went to aid her, but Sophia kept it from doing so.

"Oh, how curious...It is, unlike me, to get lost in thought like that. You must excuse me..."

As Deliah's blade neared the witch's head, bringing with it a lifetime of suffering, angst, and regret, heavy with the weight of her husband's demise and the lamenting of her entire family after the fall. Ladden with just how tired she was of all this darkness. It called out for freedom for release. These emotions still struck out at Sophia's despite Deliah's blade never reaching her, for wrapped around the worn warrior's arms and legs were a litany of smoky dark tendrils. They held her back, albeit with quite a bit of struggle, as Deliah's rage and heartache pushed her.

"Tell me...why have you come here? Why would you do this to us?"

She growled in demand, almost snarling, seething in fury. Sophia's gaze shifted from Deliah's, whose piercing silver eyes were becoming a bit of an eye sore to her. They now lay on Gerald, who was but mere moments from death. He teetered on its precipice, held on by her decrepit arcane magic. He must be preserved until the appointed time. Till then, she supposed she would bless his wife with the answers she sought.

"Oh, my dear, as difficult as this might be for you to believe, it truly is nothing personal. I would've never set foot on this sinking ship if I had it my way. And yet, all the same, fate brought me here, the ambition of a greedy human seeking to overthrow his betters. Binding me to this soiled surface...but despite its unassuming appearance, Rudral is bustling with primordial influence, an influence I must make my own. I need to break the bonds that tie me to this place..."

"Wait....you can't possibly mean."

Sophia's eyes flicked back to her. She slithered across the ground like a skulking shade, becoming formless in the blink of an eye. She wrapped herself solemnly around Deliah.

"Yess, Azlan, the font of Rudral primal magnificence. As I am, though, I would never be able to claim its power, not with the one I am bound to being such a weak creature. His baseness limits me....my knowledge of the dark arts dives back into legacies that once walked this world before the concept of your kind was even pondered. And it is through this very knowledge I devised a plan."

Deliah struggled against the ensnaring darkness but to no avail

"I escaped a fearsome realm of death and eternal imprisonment, an abyssal plane, Io’Kaleer, otherwise known as The Nether. A place filled with such horrors they would make my little rite seem like a tale of caution to naughty children. Still, my magic is tethered there; nonetheless, it is quite a precarious predicament. So what to do? I could never bring myself to return to that accursed plane, but having been trapped here by the whims of a weakling, I could not escape this prison, trapped here like a rat along with the rest of the common rabble. But then it hit me...."

She squeezed tighter, Deliah feeling the pressure of the shadow attempting to crush her little by little.

"Instead of taking the party to the nether, I would bring The Nether here."

Deliah breaths became ragged.

"If you kill Azlan, it won't just be Erosia that falls; you'll damn the soul of every living thing on the island. Without the great tree’s roots, the stones will fall...the island could even sink…our world buried beneath stone and sea..."

Sophia's form becomes a wisp as she resolidifies near her table, where the book contains the instructions for the rite. Despite Sophia's main body drifting apart from her binds, they remained as strong as ever. She disregarded her words, so enamored with breaking down her ambition, lost in telling her tale, unconcerned with her captive thoughts on the matter, like scientists obsessed over their experiment. Their lives work so near to fruition.

"The illness is but the first step of an unfortunately long and painstakingly arduous process. To perform such profane arts, the land itself must be prepared appropriately. It must be mired with death, saturated with the loss of life and the lingering regret of its fallen. The timing, is the most crucial thing, only during the gaze of a full harvest moon should the grand sacrifice be made. The collective culling of 777 suffering souls. Do you not see the humor in this Delilah?

She smirked

"Usually, this kind of heinous hex would call for the blood of a virgin, the purity of a saint. No, this ritual desires the souls of the downtrodden and miserable. Ha! What fun! Muwhahaa!"

As Sophia's mad cackle filled the hut, Deliah felt an incomparable rage swell within her, spilling over into the darkness around her. Beneath the prison of shadow, her heart thumped heavily. Even the gods above knew that Rudral wasn't worth much of the effort to save it, but when she thought about how many would lose their lives, whether they were innocent or not didn't matter; they had already suffered enough, and she could not bear to think they would be made to suffer even more just for the black witches selfish ambitions.

“I can’t be hearing this right. You're telling me that you forced poison upon my husband in our town…for your sick gain?”

She struggled and struggled some more, her aura ebbing in and out of existence as her consciousness slowly wained. Her air passages had been restricted, making it harder and harder to breathe. Despite this, the resistance in her heart, her desire to see the witch fail, was the one thing anchoring her still to the world of the lucid.

"The only constant definitive thing in this universe is change, Delilah. Do you lash out as the sky when lightning strikes, when a caterpillar consumes a plant to enter its chrysalis? No, for it is of no fault of the lion that kills to survive, nor the fly that feeds the Venus. The world is moving into the next stage of its existence; our very universe is molting, and I will NOT be left behind. I was robbed of my life once...I will allow nothing to take from me ever again..."

" So, Instead, you will pillage ours?!"

"I invite you to change your perspective, Delilah. If the joy you experienced here...was nothing more than a hollow fabrication, a misty illusion, echoes of the longing of a life you can never return to. Then, what I offer is freedom. My rite cannot use the souls of the happy nor the inspired; think about what that means. If your love, your hope was real; I could have never made it this far..."

Sophia's words, like fangs, sank into the woman's heart. Her mind, body, and soul were torn between each other as she struggled to keep herself together. Was it indeed so? Had she just been allowing herself to go through the motions? Faking her smiles, faking her joy? The shadows wrapped ever tighter around her; she could feel her bones beginning to fracture under the pressure. Sophia's demonic guardian, "The Black Knight," Approached Deliah, its long fingers sliding down her face as her consciousness faded into the abyss...

"Deli...lah…stop…her…”

Just then, she heard the voice of her love weakly but assuredly cried out to her his voice the last thing her drifting mind heard. This brought all their time together rushing back to her. They smiled as they tilled the field together and drank at the tavern. The time she broke her leg, and he cared for her diligently.

"Gerald?”

Sophia's gaze lazily drifted back to Deliah, who had begun gleaming with an almost insufferably bright aura.

"He's never been particularly good at farming work, but he always tried to lighten my burden. He could take the rotten soil of this hard land and grow gold."

The smoky black began to give way, her grip over the haggard woman tweaking. Sophia's gaze broadened slightly as the women's naten grew staggeringly high.

"He dreamed of sailing the ocean across the mother, of charting the stars. He always held fast to the hope that one day, he could show me his homeland. Those dreams, that love, It is not for you...for you to decide..."

Gripping her blade beneath the darkness, Deliah felt a surge of mystic power akin to an old friend returning to her. A vow she had long forgotten after losing her memory during the fall. But here, under the duress of such overwhelming darkness, the solemn spark of light sheltered away in her soul began to illuminate anew, producing a searing light that forced the Black Hand away from her, causing Sophia to throw her cape up to shield herself from its luminance.

"Impossible..."

Sophia whispered as her dark hold on Delilah lost its grip her light busking from under until the tendrils snapped like strings of rubber disputing under the shimmering resolve of her aura. As it did so her eyes became endowed with a brilliant silver haze her hair beginning to illuminate with the same glow. Sophia could not help but glare nastily in angst, wholly caught unawares by this seemingly sacred energy, let alone Deiah to be the one to muster such a thing. She had been sure to evaluate the spiritual promise of everyone in Erosia, handily picking her targets…but Deliah, despite her tsudere attitude, had not shown aptitude as a helpful ingredient. She still held the faintest tremor of hope in her soul.

Yet here she is, trying to stand against her. Delilah’s mind, overcome with emotion, experienced a moment that belonged to her alone: the sound of bells, the chiming of crystal, followed by a sweet smell.

“Fate touched vessel, blessed of the Moonflow, long has it been since your heart has thumped with purpose. Lost in the darkness since the fall of the crucible, the font from where your power once poured is now barren. Yet now, even though your memories were thrust into shadow, swallowed by forgetfulness, in the face of overwhelming evil, deceit, and darkness, the tents of your vow burn bright still…”

Her blade became scripted with runes as her mind became flushed with memories. The years spent participating in the coliseum, her victories, her prayers for good luck, the root of her oath…

"WHAT IS REAL TO ME OR MY FUCKING HUSBAND!"

In a blister of speed, it was shocking for even Sophia to witness her sacred moonlit blade go for her side with tremendous force. If not for The Black Knights's uncanny reflexes, Sophia would have had her torso severed from her; in the blink of an eye, all of her hard work almost ended. She did not evade the blow unscathed; a burning wound left her stomach cut on the left. The bellow of force immediately after Delilah's blow released a wave that blew Sophia and the demon through the wooden cottage.

After they got about 4 meters away, the knight-dug its claws into the earth, halting them and allowing Sophia to catch her footing again. She glanced at the wound the girl had given her, infuriated to find that it had not immediately sown itself shut. Nor the wound her companion suffered. This woman, how could a power like this be laid under her nose this entire time? Granted, it was possible since her nose was always so far in the air she could snort the clouds; today, that arrogance almost tore her ambitions asunder. She needed to know what she was up against and handle it soon. The Harvest Moon would be upon them soon; if she missed this chance, it would be ages before the next.

"My wound isn't healing?”

Looking out the gaping wound of the cottage, Delilah glared at Sophia with piercing, determined eyes through the lingering dust of her assault. Ones that flickered with dominance and superiority. Feeling the blessing of the Moonflow coursing through her once more, she ordained with the light needed to banish this darkness from Rudral once and for all. She did not pursue Sophia right away. First, she would tend to her Husband. The damage of the hut began to reconfigure, fixing itself magically.

*Inside the hut*

"Deliah...your radiance...it's returned..."

"It is only because yours burned so brightly in the dark."

*Outside*

The Demon reformed fully at her side, its voided face near her ear.

"A daughter of Minratha? How...interesting..."

"What do you know?"

"It is said there was once a pond that sat directly beneath Kirins peak in the skies—a place where creatures came to quench their thirst one last time before they died. Over the ages, the waters became endowed with lunar energy. A hallowed place of immense spiritual presence coping the resting souls of many fallen. Maleific creatures drawn there coveting its power for themselves.

The cries of the dead wishing to keep this place safe so that the dying could rest in peace overflowed from the unseen into the lunar pond, creating “The Moon Flow.” It is from this brew Minratha was born, defending it from those who would exploit it. She has always been fascinated with mortals and is even known to bless those who will help her protect the oasis. Her chosen drink directly from the MoonFlow. They swear a blood oath of tennats they can never break. So long as their oath remains, they can wield her light as their own. "

"A fae born from the will to protect the dead? Vescrutia truly is a marvel. How could we have not noticed it till now?"
Sophia inquired. She was akin to the unseen; she should have caught at least a whiff.

"It appears she lost her memory some time ago and, with it, her oath. It is the memory of their faith that fuels them; without it, she was severed from her source...you have roused a sleeping dragon, it seems"

"Tch, her little sparkles are no match for me."

She scoffed, correcting her posture. The darkness hugging her began to bubble like tar. Deadflame, also known as Necrofire, manifests the Nether's necrotic energy.

"The light is an...inconvenience, horrors cower before it’s glow..."

"Lesser ones perhaps…but I am no lesser being."

*Inside*

"I'm sorry my love...I don't think...I can...keep my promise."

Her grip tightened...

"Hush now...save your strength...."

She said as she ran her hand through his hair. Overtaken by his exhaustion, he fainted.

“Leave the rest to me; she will not have her way”

Delilah placed her blade in front of her as a customer of a knight when in the presence of the one they revere.

“ Matron of the Moon flow hear me plea.”

Her body began to exude a profound silver aura.

“I, Delilah Nightsbane, Former Head commander of the Zithcari knights, stand in opposition to this foe. Grant me your grace, immerse me in your light. So that I might conquer this great darkness before me!”

The ground beneath her trembled as the moon mother heeded her words, embracing her once more like a worried parent glad their child had returned. With it, Delilah’s former standing as a chosen one of the MoonFlow coursed through her once more.

Sophia sensed the tempting power bubbling on the other side of the door, which was enough to set her soul aflame. Lo'Kaleer's somber green, tar-like nature pooled at her feet. A pond of black surrounded her for about 6 meters or so.

“Black Knight, go to the anointed places…begin the incantation. Once I am done here, I shall join you.”

The demon would vanish in a plume of Smokey essence as Sophoa Naten began to seep out of her.

“I’ve got some time to kill. Envelope me, Ar’Ratheus!!”

The black tar sprung to life, entangling her in a web-like cocoon of black. As the hellish essence began melting off her frame, her armor would manifest. The ambient dark energy coiled around her like a serpent, forming three heads of black magic. Ar’Ratheus, a vicious hydra she vanquished, fashioned the apex creature's hide into an armor of incredible resilience despite its light appearance. If the moon stood in the way of her destiny, she would devour it as well…as all things, even the grandeur of the moon's coastal glow.

Are fated to return to black…

"Well, Deliah, I must say, I never expected that you, of all people, would be the one to stand against me."

Sophia's words slithered from her mouth like a serpent as her piercing gaze cascaded over the moon warrior's gleam frame. This celestial defiance would not stall her ambitions. It was too late to stop her and prevent the Black Hand from rising and the fall of this system of things. As the darkness snaked over her like living shadows, she could not help but grin in anticipation. Though this girl could not hope to best her, she did possess a power capable of severing her darkness. She would have to fight this battle with her weapon....how delicious.

" Me? Having to fight...martially? How gauche... But nonetheless. The tireless works of a goddess are never done."

Deliah's brazen stare of opposition to Sophia's existence blazed with lunar valor. She could waste no more time listening to this evil's rhetoric. She had to defeat her and the demon she sent to complete her heinous rite. Deliah appeared a few feet from the dark mistress in a flare of silver-adorned blitz. She released a shockwave infused with Lunar magic, the force of the attack slicing the air itself, creating a thunderous boom after she released it; Sophia narrowly evaded the attack blinking a short distance to her right only to be met by Deliah's blade once more from above aiming to cleave the Shadow mother in half. However, just before the blade severs Sophia's crown, her spear, "Piercer Of Realms," manifests in opposition to Deliah blocking her fearsome blow. In that instance, a fierce array of blows was exchanged between them.

"Foolish Girl...you are strong, I'll give you that much, but darling...in this war of the unseen, you simply..."

For a moment, Sophia's eyes grew bright black smoke soldiers into a tendril that grabbed Deliahl by the legs, flinging her with an awe-inspiring force that sent her tunneling toward the earth.

"Don't compare...."

Sophia spear became saturated in a sinister dark and violet aura.

" And neither does your paltry patron..."

Sophia sent the flying spear after Deliah, the fearsome power of its release breaking the sound barrier with ease, a thick veil of dark magic trailing behind it like a blazing comet of blackness. Deliah tried to regain her footing, hoping to land on the earth; however, with the threat of the spear going through her stomach, she had no choice but to defend herself against the weapon. Her blade, clad in Moonlite's favor, was thrown in front of her, Sophia's spear trying to shatter through the girl's defenses and run her through. Shouldering this great force, Deliah was sent crashing through the earth, the force of the spear sending her tunneling deep within the Island.

A Glyph would manifest before Sophia had weaved together a series of ava. This glyph sent waves of terror-inducing power through the realm. Sophia's present magic power threatened to break whatever scale dared to try and measure it. Her curse flowed through practically the whole of Erosia, and the death-marred soil invigorated her. Perhaps it was time to show this girl the art of the divine and those who aspire to reach it...

"Dark Calibur..."

Her spear ignited a furious hue before releasing all the pent-up naten, years of stored malice, and menacing black magic released at once, creating a devastating assault of heinous magic capable of totally disintegrating all life it touches. Once upon a time, her deadly skill held the power to decimate this entire island and the very seas it sat upon completely. What it was now should suffice to take this glimmer off the map. The blast radius became a massive sphere of necrotic force that, upon the closing of the Orphic Queen's palm, became the size of a marble in an instant, leaving nothing but a hollow void were the cottage and two-thirds of the forest it resided in.

"Maybe in the next life, Delilah...."

As Sophia unleashed her fabled arbiter, the black knight, invisible to the mortal eye, had been around preparing the grounds for the rite. Making sure all the needs were accounted for. Tied to the shadow of Sophia that existed outside of the lands of Rudral, it knew that the Rite Of Transference was approaching its climax. The Harvest moon had reached its zenith, and the shroud between the worlds seen and unseen was thin enough. The goal of one rite was to use this as well as the curse to muster enough force to tear that boundary, creating an exit.

Sophia had tricked the boy Shabuto and his companion into fetching a useless artifact to prevent the fools from getting in their way. Venkage was notoriously resourceful, and Shabuto's abilities were still too foreign and mystified for her to leave him to his own devices. Fortunately for both of them, the man pig that summoned Sophia to the physical realm, at the very least, served a measure of usefulness. The kidnapping of the boy's guildmates and his sudden development of friendship made him all the more malleable.

He also carried a demonic artifact; it ebbed a familiar sinister aura. Confirming both Sophia and the demon Shabuto's importance. Their overarching goal would have been hindered if they had been forced to kill him too early. For this reason, his demonic item was necessary. Soon, all the moving pieces would be drawn together, and with them, the mural of onyx they sought to frame this world in. However, the ritual on Rudral, The Black Night, required much more preparation. The lives of 777 miserable souls, void of hope, their dreams only of a swift death to alleviate them of their affliction. It was time to begin the culling...

Suddenly, the temperatures in the town became so cold, and its residents could see their breath.

"Shit, why'd it get cold all of a sudden."

One civilian asked another, holding her nose and mouth, shouted muffledly.

"Fuck, what's that god's awful smell, like rotting meat."

The moon's light began to dim, becoming like a lantern on its last legs, creating a bleak horizon. A festering blackness began to manifest within the center of Erosia. This drew the attention of the other residents, who began coming out of their homes and staring at the smoldering blackness. It started to solidify, becoming the Black Knight. Now visible to the Erosia natives, they began to cower in fear. It stood 9 feet tall. All that gazed upon it felt an inexplicable fear grip them as if staring into the void where its face should've been; they instead saw their most hidden fears and repressed terror.

"Consider it an honor, Erosia; you will catalyze the dawn of a new world, for through your destruction...."

It raised its hands, and one of the warriors, shaking and feining courage, tried to attack it, but before he could complete his attack, his entire torso was gouged without the knight ever turning to face him. A tendril of darkness saturated with the fallen's blood flicked it onto the earth.

"Shall emerge the Onyx Dynasty..."

The Black Knight manifested another two sets of arms and, with a perplexing speed to witness, began rapidly weaving ava together.

"Lo'Kaleer, realm of Death, Chaos, and entropy, Necroplis, The Fel domain. For eons, you have unjustly served as a prison, voided of your true nature, denied the dynamism that is—a plane for the souls of the fallen to war and be reborn where death, life, and rebirth intertwine. Here, in the hour of the Harvest moon, we shall free you of your binds and bring you into the mortal world...Come...Lo'Kaleer, accept this offering of 777 dead lights, and let dread of their death provide you a worthy welcome and throne for those who have prepared this land."

As the demon spoke these words, the earth and the clouds above began to darken. The earth quaked gingerly as if the soured lands were humming a hymn of dark celebration. As it reached its final hand sign, its black body began to bulge and control obtusely like something was fighting to get out; its bulbous form grew several times its size. The people began to flee in hysteria; over the last year, many of the needed sacrifices had perished and were buried on Erosia soil, which left a little under 300 souls still barely clinging to life in the town. It was time they be snuffed out.

The moon burned fiercely with a bright and ominous sparkle. The Black Hand's shadowy form began to rip and tear like a bag that could no longer hold its contents together.

"Marana Gisei!!!

Its last words before a meaning smile formed on its blank face. Sprawling forth from its mouth were hundreds of flying tendrils that specifically went after those marked by Sophia's poison. The spectral hands forced themselves into their mouth, hijacking their bodies and forcing them to drag their decrypt forms to the town's center. Loved ones and concerned parties tried to stop them, but nothing could keep them from moving; as the last of the shadows fled from the Black Knight's body, it took its right arm, wiping the residual fluid from its mouth. Its shadowy form began to reform itself as the panicked scream filled the air, the torrent of chaos unleashed, sending chills of exuberance through its opaque physique.

"The child of Minthara must be giving her issues...once the final sacrifice perishes, the throne will manifest; silly girl, she must hurry. I cannot complete the rite without her...much as it loathes me to admit it."

*Back to Sophia*

She smirked; she could not help but be amused at the destruction she was capable of even now in this...weaker form. The darkness within her, this bleakest of black, completely engulfed all it touched...so to shall be the fate that awaits all those who oppose her and the many others who must fall for her to rise.

"This feeling...the demon has begun the rite, and my shade nearly has hers complete; I must hurry. My destiny shall be stalled not a second longer."

Sophia turned her back to the void. Though Gerald was one of her chosen, it would mean nothing at this stage; she could slaughter any one of these pathetic peons to satiate the blood rite. Their misery had been mired in this land before she sat on these wretched grounds. She only cultivated its long-sown seeds, stirring the pot as it were. A sharp feeling shot through her spine as she went to fly on her way to meet the Black Knight.

BBBEEENNEEVVAAAA!!!!!

From the barren landscape left in the aftermath of Sophia's power, Deliah stood, albeit barely, in shimmering defiance. Tears burning down her face, Gerald had perished in the attack.

"Shit..."

Deliah cut through the skies like a blazing silvery comment, accoasting Sophia.

"MOON MOTHER, GUIDE MY BLADE; LET ME SLAY THIS FOE!!!!"

She raised her sword, now engorged with the moon's scathing vengeance raised above her head; her body battered with chunks of flesh missing from various parts of her body yet covered in flaring runic markings.

"Dammit, this bug will not stay squished!"

Her blade grew heavy with power, pouring the remainder of her life force in the next swing. She would fall here this day, her love now dead. It was fine by her, but she would bear this fang till her final breath!

"THIS WORLD SHALL SUFFER YOU NO LONGER!"

*Back in Erosia*

The people stricken with the black illness would find themselves in a circle, immobile, and forced to stare at the moon as it slowly became orange. The Black Knight stood in its center, ready to initiate the next phase, but just as it was about to do so, it got a deathly revelation: Sophia's life was in danger.

"Damn fool! Her arrogance will ruin everything!"

The demon forged a completely foreign sign from the ones it had used thus far. The space rippled around it as the shadows completely engulfed it. As the brilliant gleam of Deliah's blade came crashing down before Sophia, she released the final attack.

"MOONFLOW CYLICA!!"

From her blade, a massive bloom of lunar magic scathed the very night itself, illuminating the vast chasm carved by Sophia's arbitor. Sophia's use of Dark Caliber wiped her of the energy needed to deal with this desperate attack. Just as the scalding essence sought to consume her, the space beneath Sophia began to distort like a puddle perturbed.

She vanished, and in her place would emerge The Black Knight: Shadow Swap, a unique trait of the demon tethered to her. So long as Sophia and it are connected, they can switch space through their shadows. Though the demon itself would fare no better against the child of Minathara's wrath, so long as Sophia lived, it would reform in time. Had Sophia perished, his only connection to the seen realm, his essence would be dragged into the nether and forced under the subjugation of the Watchers once more. It would not have all its carefully labored works sundered by these petulant girls' ineptitude.

"FINISH THE RITE; SUMMON LO'KALEER!!"

Its vehemence sent a fierce telepathic lashing at her, to which she clenched her face; her glare leered beyond the shadows at Deliah, Sophia's blood practically boiling. To think she had been pushed this far...reduced to retreat in the face of an adversary.

"Minthara...I wont forget this insult"

The blast consumed both shadow and demon, and as the light faded, none but Deliah remained. She fell to the abyss below, her hands reaching towards the moon, tears floating from her face as the light of Minthara left her, the last of her life force drifting away.

"Gerald...Moon Mother, forgive me...Darkness triumphed this day..."

"Dammit....that girl...and her fucking god."

Sophia said as the shadows foretelling her arrival disputed like mist around her. Her face planted into her palm, preventing her from seeing the work of Erosia; there was only the blackness of her stare in her hands. A most insufferable slight against her. She? The mistress of Night, arbitor of the black change soon to engulf the world, made to feel...fear? She quickly understood the root of this, her ignorance of the old ways, the eons upon eons of knowledge she once had. She should have known about the Moonflow. Such a force of note, such an ancient power, there could have been no possibility, no reality present that should exist where she did not...and yet. Her she was. Having only narrowly survived by the skin of her well-polished teeth, thanks only to the Black Knight's willingness to shoulder the burden of her miscalculation.

She knew it was no altruistic gift on its part from the kindness of its pure heart. It was the tenacity and resolve to see this through to the end. Leaving this hell rock was the first step on a trek of reclaiming her ancient majesty. It would be forestalled no longer. She had to get her shit together.

"Pucker up darling...."

She said after inhaling deeply. Despite not looking out onto the scene, she could hear the chaos the cultivation for the rite had ensued. The screams of agony trepidly began to soothe her ailing heart. The ebbs of horror as the nearly departed encircled her gave her the pep-up she needed to shrug off her oversight from earlier. Even the Goddess of death has rough days...

"The Spotlight is upon you."

Her face left the confines of her hands to reveal a sight so breathtaking that Sophia's eyes were moved to tears. Leagues of blackened bodies gathered around her, the sickly, the maimed; they were legion, their misery a sweet sonnet of sickly sorrow. Like a silken nectar, it stuck to the air, ripe with its ailment. Sophia took her hand and slyly sent it into her chest; she grunted as she pierced her flesh from within her chest, a pulsating sinisterly dark green and black gem-like energy. Pure Necrotic energy, the essence of the dead. Her blood cascaded upon the charred earth; as it did, it grew bright with the same dark force as the essence she held in her hand. Her eyes gleamed bright, willing that blood to ignite, creating a pentagram spread out under all the ill-gotten souls around her.

"Hear me, Fel Plane, the seat of shadows and rebirth; I grant you the dimmed lights of 777 souls weary of this poultry life; the light promised them prosperity yet only impeded them. Cull their misery, feast upon their malice, and yield to me, the arbiter of transition!"

The Black Knight was right; she could not allow her arrogance to prevent her from achieving the ascension she had given herself. Her body, mind, and soul were wholly committed to this entire moment, this singular junction eons in the making. As she spoke her incantation, the marred earth, shadows, and death magic began to restore, igniting the feet of the blacked residents in its dark purple flames that bubbled like tar.

"Lo'Kaleer! Let your blood, DeadFlame, pour out from the earth like puss from a festering wound, gut out, and singe the infection of the imperfection of this world! "

The dark magic of the Necrofire resonates with the Shadow magic coursing within the offerings, devouring their naten and life force. Their eyes dissolve, and the escaping shadows emerge like black tears as they ascend toward the sky. Erosia watched in unperturbed, undiluted horror as this sacrilicious ceremony happened.

"Behold Minthara! Gaze now upon the death I sow! COME AND BEHOLD THE NETHER!!"

The collected blackened lifeforce eclipsed the moon, bathing Rudral in darkness. Only the light of Azlan's beaming boldness scurried through the veil's performance. This blackness began to twist as the darkened, shadow-rich earth began to crack from under its five columns. As they continued to grow, it would reveal a massive black hand of gloom. It soared high into the skies, stopping just barely under the oscillating orb of dead flame. The middle touched the orb, causing the blackness to fade, revealing a dazzling orb akin to a brilliant new moon blistering in the sky. The hand would grab onto this essence as it drifted back down the same finger that ignited the orb, stopping just shy of Sophia's forehead. She looked to Erosia again, out to Azlan, the silent sentinel, not even carrying enough in all its insufferably brilliant power to defy her.

" Goodbye, Erosia, tata, for now, Azlan; we shall meet again one day soon."

The finger touched her, and once it did, Sophia's entire form became filled with the hardnessed death magic, the heinous force embezzled into her mortal form. This sent a shockwave of necrofyre that burned away the flesh of now empty vessel of her sacrifices, leaving nothing but flaming skeletons melted into the earth. Sophia's flesh was burned from her with an agonizing baptism of deadflame as the black hand returned to the scorched that birthed it. With it, Sophia's dissolving mortal form, her mad cackling, and her cries of exuberating suffering filled the realm as the hand clawed out an abyss ebbing with the nether influence, The Gateway revealed.

The Gateway is a massive tear between that which separates the realms seen and unseen. Its form and shape alter depending on the one invoking it. Regardless of size, invoking one requires an absent amount of power. In the ritual that brought her here, Belif, the mortal man of little arcane cunning he was, still managed to open an entry point as significant as a typical door. With the backing of the Black Knight, Sophia created a rift the size of a lake. The land where the void rest existed no longer, the cauterized bones of the fallen erased, their only heirlooms were the memories held in the hearts of those who loved them, forever scarred by the heinous mark she had left on them all.

The gateway to Lo'Kaleer was like a living entity, and only after being fed would it yield to the whim of the one who provided the meal. From the belly of the necrotic void did a plume of formless darkness manifest as if the very seams of the Nether began weaving its form into that of a woman. Her body black like the void that wove her, eyes gleaming with the essence of Necrofire, the energy of the Deadflame, the force of death, the nether itself, flowing through her. It's Scion born anew, washed in the essence of the dead and living. The blackness of the Shadows around her began to give way, unveiling Sophia reborn.

The air about her had changed. Her gaze no longer burned with anxiousness nor uncertainty of any kind. The ritual had been completed, and her binding to the mortal belief no longer hindered her connection to the nether. With her was full access to her necrotic lineage and the demon mastery of the demon within her. Lo' Kaleer's chosen had returned. "It feels soooo good..." Her words seeped from her lips slowly, as if savoring each syllable spoken from her newly formed lips. "To be alive." Power flowed somberly from her, the sheer intensity of her existence ebbing against the boundary of the realms as if whatever manner of being existed between realms: the living and the dead, the rise and the fall. She could feel it in the tips of her fingers, in the stale gales of wind that brushed through her ebon hair, a shift in the paradigm—a twist of fate strings.

She would descend to the grounds of Erosia a few feet away from a man trapped in a fear-induced stupor. When their eyes met, his form combusted in a vaunt of Deadflame. Sophia's gaze widened in shock. "Dear me, I didn't even try to do that," she said, a wicked smile across her face. It seemed that her spiritual presence had grown to such heights or sunk to such depths that beings of weaker spiritual consultation could not hold themselves around her, forcing their life force to combust into dead flame.

This was good to know; she would have to...fine-tune her influence on the living realm, lest she leaves a trail of flaming corpses whenever she treads. "Now, to keep my word...come, Black Knight." A large mass of ebon magic emerged from her stomach; she barely winced as the blood spilled. It solidified into a giant black claw. Its figure was revealed as the entity fully materialized from her gaping wound. A massive black dragon took to the skies, its cries of freedom echoing through the city before it plummeted to the ground, its form morphing into something akin to a humanoid.

The Black Knight returned to its ancient form, the guise it held before its severance—an amalgamation of Darkness and Deadflame, a warrior of unparalleled prowess. "I remember...my name..." The demon's low voice spoke out as it pondered its current state. The ritual was a success; the two stared at the deadly aftermath of its completion: chaos, destruction, and death. All for the sake of her ideals, it made manifest. And now, they stood upon the first deathly laid brick upon a long road to change. "Oh? Humor me, The Black Knight is a bit drab."We've mentioned so much during this rite; it's starting not to be my favorite color anymore." She said as she approached the demon knight. Sophia could feel it, their connection aside, its smoldering demonic power. "Grixas".

Knowing a demon's name was no small thing. Names held power, and in the hands of a demon beckoning process, even more so. However, Sophia had no true aim in subjugating her companion; their union was symbiotic. What she was interested in, though, was its purpose. It knew her aims yet had never revealed their own, simply wishing to come along for the ride, promising power and knowledge, knowing that it would eventually lead to the reclamation of all that was stripped from them through the summoning. Though she briefly pondered its name, she remembered something: " Grixas? Now, where have I heard that before?". The black-clad demon stretched its massive wings, readjusting itself to having a corporal form once more." Well, there shall be plenty of time for discussion; let us leave this hellscape," Sophia said, having already grown tired of the flaming walls of the terrified. She was ready to venture on from this prison, don't greener or blacker pastures. However, Grixas did not share her readiness to leave, not just yet." Sophia, we still have one matter to settle before you go off with your Girl Scouts and play assassin." She scoffed, flippant beast; she wondered what he could have meant. The rite was done, their power returned, and the gateway manifested. They only needed to do it, and they could leave. What could be worth staying here a second longer? " And that would be?".

She inquired with a curious gaze. Her arms folded solemnly under her breastplate as the ribbons of darkness that made up her gilded garments floated majestically in the scream-filled gales. "The boy, that Venkage..." Sophia's eyes widened with increasing intrigue. Why, she forgot all about the little stain and his companions. "What could he possibly have that we need." Granted, Venkage were exceptional artificers, and the boy seemed to have a particular heightened knack for it; he did create the ring that could assist in harnessing rudrals currents. That aside, he wasn't much else worth a dime. The demon folded its arms as it began looking toward the skies. It was strange for Sophia to witness such pondering from the raven one. "No, we, I." Her hand trailed along her forearm before landing on the nape of her chin. "Ah, so the plot thickens." Grixas continued to gaze at the stars."The staff, you noticed the demonic influence ebbing from it. Did its blackness not feel...familiar?" Sophia turned from him, her eyes gingerly shifting from side to side.

Indeed, now it made more sense why the demon was so set on her not using the boy...the staff and it were connected, but to what end? "I do, in fact; you wished for him to live, so I sent them on a wild goose chase into the heart of SEED. The staff, the demon within it, who or what is it?" Her tone demanded the truth, letting her death partner know there would be no tolerance for hidden agendas and details. However, they were two consipteros in a vast array of deadly occurrences. There had to be honor amongst thieves.

Their pact demanded the truth from them both. Grixas knew this most of all. Compelled by oath to speak, it did so. "I am an Archdemon, Gongorei; even this is but a droplet of my power. What you see before you now, I am, is only one-third of a whole—a fragment of my true self. Like you, an eon ago, I was stripped apart and sealed within the Necropolis, the prison where the most heinous of cosmic terror are held. That boy bares the stench of not only one of my parts but two. He is the key to my ambitions...which means..." It said that looking over its shoulder at Sophia would have been looking at it with a precarious look. "He is the key to mine as well...fine. I shall fetch them. I cannot stand being here a moment longer than necessary; let your culling be swift." As she said, this naten began to twist around her, a gorgeous gloom of heinous magic pulsating with purpose. She knedded her intention into it until it became but a wisp of living shadow within her hands. "Bring me the boy...." With a light kiss, it was off to achieve its directive, bringing Shabuto and his demonic item to her.