#fence macabre

[flo-machina]

What was the name of your stoner Tauren guy from like 3 ½ years ago?

That would be The Chungler bay beeeeee o yea let's get ready 2 chungle

He started off as a weed joke and a reference to a tweet and then became everyone's best friend who was secretly a green dragon youngling all along!!! A true party Animal, he/they ace, the originator and master supreme of Vapeweaving

[edmund-valks]

Interlude - The Maw

A blacksmith would have taken different steps.  Forge the blade, give it a handle, wrap the handle.  Something like that, at least.  Thankfully she was able to skip most of that by designing a mold and taking extraordinary care in its production.  A perk of being smart, as she figured it.

The metal was nearly ready.  It wasn’t the colour of anything she’d seen back on Azeroth, instead shedding four different glows at once.  They overlapped and intertwined because nothing here was ever simple.  Ilandreline wasn’t one for metaphors, but even she could recognize this one: four ores, wildly distinct, that could only be properly alloyed through the use of a fifth.  Naturally the alloy was stronger than any of them independently.  Also it was a bastard to work with.

She fed the ingots into the crucible, watching as the forge’s heat quickly liquefied the elethium.  A pull of the lever and it drained into the waiting mixture, which one more movement injected into the waiting mold.  That had been the real work, creating the exact negative space needed inside a block of solid stone.  Not just any stone, of course, but the kind that wouldn’t melt in a furnace designed to bind souls to metal.  Getting pieces of the Black Empire was hard enough even before one crossed into the realms of the dead.

Once the mixture had filled the block, Ila grasped it with the tongs she’d liberated from the soulforger whose workspace she now used.  Steadiness was required to keep the metal from sloshing out or the whole thing from upending.  Her movements were slow and deliberate, never jerking.  A device was only as good as its craftsmanship; she intended this one to be her masterpiece.

Typically one would quench using a specific liquid.  Fresh water, salt water, olive oil, certain beverages made by the dwarves… what one used depended on the desired outcome and the materials involved.  For this it was something a bit more unusual.  The Maw had recently become the destination for a great deal of anima drawn from the spirits being repented in Revendreth.  This made for a sharp, hungry quench, which was precisely what she needed.  She lowered the discomfiting block of slick stone into the roiling crimson, listening to the violent hissing as the alloy took shape.

Once the soul-steam had cleared and the little barrel was minutes removed from its moment of boiling, she fished the mold out with her borrowed tongs.  "This better have worked," she muttered, mostly to externalize the worry.  Better out than in, that sort of thing.  "Only one way to find out."

Placing the black brick on the anvil nearby, she inspected every side for cracks or gaps.  The only one she could find was the little hole where she'd added the molten metal, so… maybe it had happened?  Picking up the hammer she'd made for just this purpose, Ilandreline closed her eyes and sought the resonance.  It was so much easier now than that first time.  That was how she'd survived the darkest path into the Shadowlands, and ever since she'd found herself increasingly aware.  Now it was almost as easy as making saltpeter; not necessarily fast, but a simple task for the experienced.  She felt for her core, dove into it, releasing her perceptions through the nightpurple veins bordering reality.

The Black Empire remnant was anything but dark now.  Even the Maw's dolorous half-light caused a reaction, oil-slick scintilla flaring across the infinitesimal pockmark surface.  In a way, it sang.  Not like a voice, but a tuning fork, a frequency of sensation manifesting multitudinous waves into singular tone.  Where her family's faith resided she felt the echo of kinship.  Reaching through herself, she grasped the thread of the stone's structure and pulled.

In a sweater, such an act would have been the destruction of order that caused its unraveling.  The bedrock of those who dwelt between the stars was made differently, however.  What she had done manifested as an ordering matrix, leaching the inherent structural chaos out, snapping the minerals into some kind of grid.  Gripping tightly through the depths of her soul, Ilandreline raised the hammer high and swung.

The hardened shadowghast strikeface tolled as it impacted the ruthlessly ordered block.  The sound was brutal in its discordance, an archetypal resonance of shattered chains.  What was held tightest become most undone; the black stone crumbled to dust, its forced structure inverted until it could no longer hold together.

Ilandreline felt her entire self ringing as she set the hammer aside.  The reverberations rattled through her bones, trying to unmake her as thoroughly as she had the old gods' relic.  But she was a Glimmerbow, born of those dark blessings, the ancient primordial unmakers' essence suffusing the deepest fibers of her being.  The resonance traveled through her, unable to find an outlet to erode, equally unable to escape until she opened her mouth.

She didn't scream; this wasn't pain.  Instead she had become an accidental echo chamber, an acoustic amplifier not unlike the elegant curves of a bell.  From inside her structure rang the peal of uncreation.  Open-mouthed she exhaled it into the stygian plains, unable to cease until the note was spent.  Unable to hear, she could still feel the rigid structure of forge beside her eroding beneath the reciprocal action to what she had done.

As suddenly as it began, the moment ended, buckling her knees.  Reflex alone allowed the elf to catch herself, weak-legged and bent over the anvil, eyelids only now able to pry themselves apart.  Unsteady, Ila exerted her focus once more, willing herself to stay standing.  As she did so, refusing to acknowledge the possibility she might collapse, she examined her work.

Atop a fine pile of utterdark sand lay a blade.  It was a single piece, cast-forged, with a tapering, triangular blade emerging from one edge of a metal-wrought vertebra.  Opposite the blade extended the cylindrical smoothness of bone, flaring into a double-knobbed pommel.  It was far more beautiful than she'd expected, or perhaps that was the wrong word.  Elegant?  Fitting.  This was a blade made with purpose, for someone very specific, and such certainty was apparent in its aesthetics.

"Almost done."  Her voice was hoarse though she didn't realize it.  She hardly knew she'd spoken, what with the ongoing ringing in her ears, and the way structures sounds such as speech fell apart in the fading wake of the hammer blow.

Ilandreline forced her legs to stillness, stood straight atop them once more.  Grasping the weapon's handle -- she would wrap it with aged linen later, to give it the feel of something found in an ancient mausoleum -- she turned its stiletto point toward herself.  Her other hand moved to expose an expanse of pale flesh, against which she set the blade.

"Freely given," she murmured, the spoken fraction of a larger recitation mostly contained within her mind.  "A gift for another, made with intent.  A part of me to carry with you."  It was almost embarrassing to say it.  Hearing herself speak so openly brought heat to her cheeks, but it wasn't so bad to shake her from her plan.  Not after coming so far.  

Shutting her eyes, Ilandreline exhaled slowly.  Her free hand rested along the cold curves of the pommel.  Freely given.  Lungs fully empty, she braced herself and pushed.

The blade slid in more easily than she'd expected, quickly piercing through skin and fat and muscle.  Farther and farther she guided it until the change in resistance signified she'd reached her goal.  Just the barest movement more, pricking the exterior of her still-beating heart.  Now the hard part.

Pulling the blade back out was the most excruciating experience of her life.  It was a tool of purpose, to pierce through barriers and bring an end.  To remove it without having killed was to deny it that fulfillment, and so the blade fought her every fraction of the distance.  Blood -- her blood -- flowed over its pyramidal smoothness, slicking everything, trying to undo her efforts and allow the blade to feast on her life.  Gritting her teeth, she looped a finger through the hole in the center of the guard, using the extra leverage to force the dagger out of her flesh entirely.

Slamming the bloodied weapon back on the anvil, Ila scrambled to the forge.  There she snatched up the last of the prepared tools, a length of featureless iron, brilliantly glowing from the infernal heat.  "Fuck, this was a stupid idea."  Laughing at herself, she pressed the white-hot implement against the triangular piercing in her breast, allowing her rasping scream to drown out the sound of flesh cauterizing.

She didn't know how much time elapsed between keeping herself from bleeding to death and when she was able to stand again.  It didn't matter, not really.  The important thing was Loira's gift was finished.  Complete, even.  Totally worth it… but if she loses it I'm gonna kill her.

Chuckling at that, Ilandreline scraped herself together.  Time to get out of here before the Covenants' assault wavered and the Jailer's forces had time to look for things like wayward elves with bad ideas.  She took another quick look at her handiwork as she vacated the premises.  There was no trace of her blood any longer, though she didn't remember wiping it clean, and every now and then the faint ghost light would reflect off a fleck of gleaming darkness.  Sand in the blade?  No, not sand; the dust of the Black Empire.  Absorbed somehow following the sanguine consecration.  Curious, but probably not a big deal.  She hadn't felt anything strange, and her instincts were usually good about that sort of thing.

"Thanks for the help!" she told the forge's previous user, stepping over its hollow corpse.  The spiked helmet that had been something like a head was mangled beyond recognition, as if repeatedly bashed by some kind of heavy blunt object.  Ilandreline hefted her oversized wrench, rested it on her shoulder, and set off.  Hopefully the blood loss wouldn't slow her down too much.  It would be a shame to die before she could actually give Miss Winford her present.

(( Tagging for mentions of @ms-winford ))

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - Fun in the Sun

(( The Call - A Compound Beginning - Just One Cookie - Soul Food ))

Her limbs felt too heavy, her tongue too large for her mouth.  There was a mild sensation of having been sunburnt over her entire body -- kind of weird, that, given how she never went outside remotely close to naked -- but it probably wasn't life-threatening.  She was very, very thirsty, though.  "Water?"  Even croaking a single word was painful.  Hopefully there was someone around to hear.

For the moment, the only sounds Ila experienced were the dull roar of nothing, like the aftermath of being too close to an explosion.  Again, probably not life-threatening; she knew that sort of thing happened when you were certain kinds of unhealthy.  There was no doubt in her mind that she was in a state of dubious health after her long trip.  She was still piecing memories back together, but the muscle aches suggested she'd been overworking herself for days, possibly weeks.  "Fuhhnnng taimlayshn."  The words weren't quite as intended.  Close enough.

Something was in her mouth then.  Maybe a finger?  Hopefully not a dirty one.  Then a little liquid happened instead.  Water?  Water!  Or near-water; whatever it was felt like a cool drink but also burned all the way down.  Not like alcohol, either, like… cinnamon syrup?  Was that a thing?  She flinched as she swallowed, but the expression was hidden behind her goggles.

"-s that?"  Sound returned suddenly, crystallizing from the static.  "Are you still with us, mortal?  Can you hear me?"

Ilandreline forced her eyes open to slits.  The sky was overhead, viciously bright.  "Fuhhh," she growled, more by reflex than intention.  Her throat hurt, but speech was easier.  Whatever they'd given her was apparently helping.  "I… hear you.  Not dead.  Yet."  Was that a sigh of relief?  And was that some kind of whistling hoot?  Maybe her hearing wasn't totally back.

"Very good.  You did not arrive as expected.  We were very worried, especially as the darkness you emerged from continues to cling to your soul in… unusual ways."  The speaker had a lovely voice, rich and resonant and crystal-delicate.  "You were very lucky to arrive here at all.  How you even survived your journey… that is a tale I would be most interested to hear."

While her eyes slowly adjusted to the constant pain of ambient light, Ila made them focus on the speaker.  They -- she? -- was surprisingly blue, though otherwise humanoid if one ignored the bird wings.  She was wearing white and gold, both too bright to look directly at, in what appeared to be something she'd once heard described as a chiton.  Maybe.  Her knowledge of history was very good for a Glimmerbow child, but they were on the whole not great with the subject since most of their books were centuries out of date or first translations from other tongues.

"Luck," she forced out as her answer.  It wasn't even a lie.  "Nearly… didn't."  Something about all this brilliance made her suspect she shouldn't mention how much blood had been involved.  Or how much hadn't been her own.

She could see the drink now, tilted her head a bit to make it easier on her caretaker.  Whatever it was smelled… antiseptic.  Like viciously unforgiving essence of pine shoved into pure ethanol.  That explained the burning, at least.  Didn't clarify how or why she might actually feel better for having consumed it, but she'd settle for any answers.

After choking down the molten-gold elixir and weathering the unpleasantness of its effects, Ilandreline exhaled slowly.  Time to ask questions.  Almost time, rather; first she had to sit up.  Spots flared through her vision as she raised her head, even more when she propped herself up on her forearms.

"Don't-!"

She ignored the alarm, forcing her body increasingly upright until she was more or less sitting.  It still took both arms to stay there, but she could feel sensation returning to her fingertips.  Good enough.  "Thank you for… helping me."  That was a polite way to start, wasn't it?  "Would you mind telling me where I am, though?"

Shock registered on the azure face.  "You… you're in Bastion.  Home of the sworn and dedicated.  Realm of the Kyrian."  Something about Ila's expression must have shown her lack of understanding, because the winged woman rushed on.  "This is where souls go who will defend the Way and the Purpose, and shepherd others along their path to ascension."

"Uh.  Okay then."  Whatever that meant, it sounded very important to this blue person.  It also sounded like the opposite of a fun way to spend an afterlife.  "What if I don't know what any of that means?  Is that going to be a problem with my… being here?"

"Of course not."  She passed Ilandreline a fist-sized orange-skinned fruit.  "Here, if you can sit, you can eat.  Purian will restore what ambroria dew does not."

The spheroid looked good, but it tickled her nostrils with the faint scents of something left too long.  Slightly rotten, perhaps.  It wouldn't do to offend her host, though, especially when she'd arrived unannounced and mostly dead.  "Maybe… tell me about you and this, uh, Bastion stuff while I eat?"

"Oh, of course.  I am Trenasophe, a forgelite of the Kyrian."  She paused.  "Right, you don't know what that means.  I forget what it was like to be newly arrived here, for I've spent so long emptying myself of all that kept me bound.  Please, though, help yourself to food and drink while I explain."

Ilandreline has little interest in the goods on offer, though she forced herself to consume them.  Starving to death was not going to help anyone, even if having her insides lightly seared and filled with rotten fruit wasn't very fun.  Hopefully there were other dishes somewhere.  Meat would be good, even better if it wasn’t spoiled.

“The Kyrian are souls who serve the order of the Shadowlands and preserve it against those that would disrupt it.  This realm, Bastion, is where we live.  It is here we guide new aspirants on their journey to become what they were meant to be.  The way is rarely easy or swift, but little of value ever is.

“As a forgelite, my purpose is to build and maintain.  The things that surround, shelter, and guard us are not eternal, but with our efforts they will appear so for eternity.  We create and preserve, and what has been broken we seek to repair.  All things have their place in the Purpose, and it is the forgelites who guide them into shape.”

In an effort to ignore the protestations of her stomach, the elf gave these philosophical ramblings more attention than she normally would.  It didn’t make sense in the slightest, but again -- she was a guest.  Saying the whole system sounded like a load of post-processing guano would be the pinnacle of rudeness; she restrained herself to merely thinking it very loudly.  Perhaps the subject could be changed to something more interesting?  “I know some things about building, too.  What kind of stuff do you make?  Any fun machines?”

If she’d been worried there was no emotion among these creatures, that question put her concerns to rest.  Trenasophe’s lips turned up, parting into a grin.   The brightness of her teeth was only matched by the gleam in her eyes.  “I make everything,” she said with a breathlessness Ila could appreciate.  “I have learned what I did not already know and shed the bad habits learned in life.  From the most massive work of stone to clockwork so delicate I cannot hold the components in my own hands, I do it all.  Which is not to say that I have mastered them yet -- there is none among us who can match the Forgelite Prime -- but perhaps someday I will, if that is how I am allowed to serve.  Is that then why you are here?  You have come to trade your knowledge for ours?”

It was a very convenient answer.  She probably should have gone for it.  “Actually, no, I’m here because this is where the road I was on threw me out.  But that sure sounds like fun.  Maybe you can teach me anyway?”

“You… did not know where you would arrive?”

Ila laughed, immediately regretting it as the rawness of her throat flared up.  “I didn’t even know if I would arrive, much less where.  All I knew was I had a pretty good idea I could get to the Shadowlands if I traveled a certain way.  Pretty glad it worked, honestly, because otherwise I’d probably be dead.”

The Kyrian blinked twice.  “If you did not know that you would make it, nor did you know your likely destination, why did you come at all?  How does this fit in with your… purpose?”

“Oh, you know, normal mortal reasons.  My grandmother was concerned about the hole in the sky on our home plane, wanted to make sure the multiverse wasn’t unraveling.  She can’t really travel these days, so she sent me.”  She smugly bit into a new purian without thinking.  Not shrieking as she swallowed took all the effort she could muster.  Doing her best to ignore the sandpaper in her throat, Ilandreline forced a smile.  “We knew there was a thinness in one of the near-planes that had contact with the Shadowlands, so it was just a matter of getting to the right part and, you know, poking a little hole through.”

Trenasophe’s brow furrowed.  “You arrived through the remnants of a planar tear from one of the most devastating assaults Bastion has ever witnessed.  Some of our greatest still bear scars from that time.  How did you survive passing through such a place?”

Shit.  Okay, time to… not lie without being too honest, right?  “It… was pretty much empty when I went through.  Didn’t see a single living thing other than myself the whole time, unless you count the blood-plants.”

“Blood-plants?”

“Yeah, red spiky things, like an aloe, but they’re full of some kind of blood jelly.  They’re not good for much except hurting yourself.”

“I… see.”  She clearly did not, and Ila had no interest in pressing her about the fib.  “How long did your journey take?  You seemed close to death when you emerged.”

She shrugged.  “No idea.  Time doesn’t work right in that place.  I thought I had enough food and water for, like, a week?  Ran out of food real fast, then water a little later, and am not exactly sure I slept other than that one time with the cookie.”

Again the Kyrian made a noise of acknowledgement without understanding.  Ilandreline hurried on before too much thinking happened.  “Anyway, thanks for helping me out.  Really appreciate it, you know, and I’d love to talk about building things just as soon as I pass out for, I don’t know, a month.”

That much Trenasophe did understand.  She smiled, rested a large hand on the elf’s shoulder.  “Yes, rest seems quite reasonable, even if your estimate of the duration is clear hyperbole.  My steward and I shall watch over you, ensure your needs are met.  All I ask in return at this moment is a name to call you by.”

“Vondariel,” she said with a smile.  Nobody outside her family knew her sister’s name -- well, maybe Miss Winford did, but good luck getting anything from her -- so it seemed a safe one to steal.  “But you can call me Von if that’s easier.”

A nod.  “Very well, Von.  Sleep in peace, knowing you are safe at last.  I look forward to helping you achieve your purpose.”

Nothing ominous about that…  Ilandreline’s eyes closed against the awful brilliance, her recuperating body descending into unconsciousness as soon as it was horizontal.

[stinkslinger]

Hello everyone! This is the blog of Ryeolan Quillsong! Fence Macabre inkslinger!

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - Soul Food

(( The Call - A Compound Beginning - Just One Cookie ))

She had nothing left to eat, a realization prompted by the sensation of fingernails scratching in an empty pouch.  A giggle escaped her.  There was something comical about running out of food in this vast wilderness.  "I could eat the plants."  That was her voice, wasn't it?  "They won't feed me, though.  They're made of nightmares and failure.  That won't do."

After realizing again her food pouch was empty, Ilandreline looked around.  Something about this place… She shook her head.  "Too hungry to think straight."  Her fingers wrapped around nothing in the little bag where she'd kept the last of her cookies.  "Wish those plant-things could help."

She reached for her water, settling for a drink now that there were only crumbs left to eat.  Squeezing the last drops into her mouth, she wondered what it would be like to die of dehydration at the end of her journey simply because she'd become so disoriented from a lack of food that she hadn't bothered to leave the Paths.  "Hah!  That would be some serious chump shit, wouldn't it, Granny?  Granny?"  She looked around, frowning at the emptiness where Aurelaine had been.  "Where'd you go?  Oh, there you are."

The old elf said nothing, merely sighed.  That was probably fair.  Ila wasn't exactly doing the family proud at the moment.  "Look, I know it's sad -- pathetic, even! -- but you have to admit it's funny.  Me dying, I mean.  Like this.  Right at the door out.  Hilarious!"

Maybe it wasn't that funny, now she thought about it.  More disappointing than funny.  That hurt, in a strange way.  She was used to disappointing her mother, but disappointing Granny Laine was something else entirely.  Maybe she should find a way not to do that?

"Would it be better if I, you know, left?  That way you wouldn't see it, right?"  She was beginning to suspect that wasn't really her grandmother at all.  Maybe it was a ghost.  Maybe it was a hallucination.  But would either of those be able to mimic the displeasure on her face so well?  She didn't know, ghosts were a Von thing, not an Ila thing.  "Whatever, it should work, I guess.  Or something.  Better to die where the dead go than here, where I'm like ninety percent sure they're just eaten.  Better than dying at a door I forgot to open then."

Again, the nagging feeling that there was an answer she was missing.  And again if fell away quickly, drowned out by the rumble of a stomach and the ridiculous situation she'd found herself in.  "Fuck it, let's just do the blood thing, plenty of that around here."  Someone laughed aloud -- it didn't sound like her, it was a bit high-pitched, kinda manic -- while Ila looked around for a plant to chop open.  There weren't many, for some reason.  This area seemed strangely barren, like if someone had cleared it intentionally.  That was odd.  Or was it?  She couldn't remember anymore.

Oh well.  No plants didn't mean no blood.  She had plenty.  Not just in her body, either!  Chuckling to herself, Ilandreline grabbed a large bottle from her pack, removing the stopper.  The iron-tang of its contents filled the air, tickling her nostrils with warm memories of a full belly.  Delicious.  Maybe if she drank the whole thing then-

No!  You're supposed to be doing something with this!  Nodding at the voice in her head, she stumbled around, emptying it as carefully as the wobbling terrain would allow.  Who authorized such an unstable plane?  She wanted to have words with them.  Or she would later, once her thoughts cleared up a bit; this haze was frustratingly hard to shake.  

She blinked bleary-eyed at her handiwork.  A circle… and now what?  Oh, right, some symbols of… uhhhh… similarity, right?  Making here like there and there like here and something big in the middle to represent an open conjunction of adjacent planes.  The blood was a perfect reagent because it was also a pun -- the places were joined because they started to bleed into one another.  A cackle from somewhere, probably her grandmother, who had decided to be invisible again.  That was her right, of course, but it got frustrating to be laughed at by someone you couldn't see.  Seemed rude somehow.

"Whatever, let's light this candle and uh… wait, there aren't any candles.  I… what was I supposed to use to…?  Oh, right!  Obviously."  She positioned herself over the central rune, giggling like a girl at the absurdity of everything.  Knife in hand, she opened her jacket and lifted her shirt out of the way.  While activating a circle normally didn't take too much, this wasn't a usual sort of rite.  Muttering something untranslatable in her family's Shath'yar dialect, Ilandreline slid the blade into her side.

The pain brought unexpected clarity.  Hissing through clenched teeth, she had a moment of recognition, one she did her best to cling to.  The life she gave to this work had to be placed here and here, with the proper invocations.  The words spilled out with only minimal slurring, the extensive practice Aurelaine had insisted on paying off in her moment of need.

This was indeed the exit, her planned destination and point of egress to the Shadowlands.  Despite being mostly delirious, she felt the work forming around her.  Through her?  Yes, that.  Black fire froze her arteries, leaving the pins-and-needles of lost sensation in its wake.  The symbols written in blood -- hers and others -- blazed holes in the non-space she’d traverse, like projector film melting in the lamp’s heat.  There was screaming somewhere, her throat sympathetically echoing the rawness of the cry.  Colours inverted around her, scintillating motes dancing in her vision, the darkness agonizing in its brilliance until-

There was light all around her.  Even with her eyes squeezed tight, she could feel its insidious heat trying to burn its way in.  But there was a certain firmness of ground around her, perhaps to all of reality, and that was what mattered.  Sightless, her fingers grasped at her belt to where she’d left her goggles hanging, exhausting what little energy she still possessed to replace them on her head.  Only then did she dare look to see what had happened, where she was.

Despite the smoky blackness of the cut-crystal lenses, there was more brightness than she would ever be comfortable with.  It didn’t hurt, not yet, but it ached.  She found herself staring at an endless blue sky overhead, with vague awareness of white stone around her, glinting gold.  Blood -- her blood -- pooled around her, providing a coolness the horrible sunlight never could.  Did she need to stop that?  Had she cut too deep?  It didn’t matter, she didn’t have the strength to cauterize herself at this point.

Wild laughter bubbled up from somewhere.  No, not somewhere, from inside her.  After a moment of wrestling with it, she stopped, though the inclination remained waiting behind the barrier of self-control.  “What a fucking joke,” she said, voice weak even inside her own head.  “Travel a billion non-miles or whatever only to die alone in a sun-scorched hellscape of a temple plane.”

“No, you will not die here.”  The words came from somewhere she could have seen if she’d been capable of moving any longer.  “You have not journeyed in vain, stranger.  There will be questions for you, when you are well enough to answer, but not until then.  Rest easy, child, knowing that the Kyrian will not let further harm befall you.”

The who?  She got as far as saying “What in the Endless Dark is a Kyr-” before her consciousness gave out entirely.

[edmund-valks]

A Special Delivery

A small package is placed at the Respite’s door, neatly wrapped in plain brown paper.  There is a label on the outside addressing it specifically to Miss Loira Winford, ℅ the Fence Macabre.  Beneath the outer wrapper is a wooden box and an envelope.  The former has clearly been touched by the arcane -- a sigil of nightblue and starlight pulses gently upon its surface, indicating either ward or lock.  The envelope is much less impressive, being mundane paper with Loira’s name on it in an unfamiliar hand.  There is no detectable magic about it; the seal is plain wax, pressed with a featureless disk.

Within the envelope are several items: a letter folded into thirds; a small square of paper with a runed diagram; and what appears to be a business card for ‘Soq’amun’s Parcel Service’, presumably the delivering party.  On the back of that last is a note in the same hand as the address but much smaller to fit its message: Sender said to use the same key as her last note, but backwards.

Once deciphered, the letter reads:

Miss Winford,

I’m afraid I’m somewhat indisposed at the moment -- nothing to bother yourself over, seriously, please don’t do anything ridiculous like try to find me -- but didn’t want you to worry.  Getting this message out was a huge pain for reasons you’ll understand if you use the unlocking seal that Sentua was supposed to include.  She’s the one who rewrote this for me, by the way.  Delivered it, too, she’s pretty good with travel magic.  (If you want to know more, ask her about her work on near-material demiplanar coordinate mapping and non-regular intraplanar geodesics.)

Anyway, all that out of the way, I was just wondering if you had access to any reagent-quality examples of shal’dorei tattooing.  Something occurred to me recently that needs testing I hope to take up with you next chance I get.  More details then/later; don’t want to cramp someone’s hand by forcing her to copy a bunch of experimental nonsense she’s not interested in.

The box is locked because the contents may be unpleasant for you to touch directly.  Didn’t want to take any chances, you know?  I hope Sentua did what I suggested and showed off her spell aesthetics with the ward; she doesn’t do that enough.  Anyway, yeah, you can always relock the box yourself after you’ve opened it.  There’s nothing that’s going to burst out of there or something, but I think you’ll get it if you look.  You don’t have to, obviously, but maybe you can find some use for it?  It’s probably hard to get some of those components.

Your friend,

Ilandreline

The container is plain but well-made, mundane wood stained dark and polished.  A dispelling would take care of the locking ward with relative ease, though not nearly as much as using the provided diagram.  Within is another letter, so bright it seems to be nearly glowing, messily folded atop the box’s purple velveteen lining.  The paper positively reeks of Light, with an aggressive undercurrent of Order.  Opening it -- best done with tongs or tweezers, if one is sensitive to these things -- shows the same letter as provided, but this time in Ila’s unusual style.  The ink appears to be pure gold, though that’s quite impossible.  Whatever it happens to be, it is certainly not native to anywhere near to Silverpine, and probably not to Azeroth at all.

(( tagging @ms-winford, clearly the recipient of this questionable package ))

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - Just One Cookie

(( Part I: The Call ))

(( Part II: A Compound Beginning ))

If you listened closely enough, you could hear the emptiness breathing.

It was fascinating to consider, or would have been if it weren't also slightly terrifying.  There was no reason for this space to sound like the lungs of some unutterable beast, yet it did.  Everything she knew about the Shadowed Path said it was empty, that nothing dwelt here and nothing could.  Perhaps nothing did.  What if the very substance of the Path was alive in some fashion?  The implications were-

Not important right now.  That was her mother's voice, reminding her that there would only be time for later speculation if she lived to do it.  Smart folk did not dally on these roads, even those who knew how to walk them.  They were treacherous, and Ilandreline did not mean their terrain.  She'd lost a distant cousin to them more than a century earlier, and supposedly even the one who'd known enough to open the First Tree to the darkness at its roots hadn't known enough to come back.

But they were fast.  She'd used them to get to Kalimdor in a few days, or to get from Tirisfal to her family's lands in an hour.  Time and distance worked differently here, or perhaps they worked exactly the same and locationality was the odd one.  There were multiple frames of reference to choose from, but they all boiled down to the same result: travel here was vastly more efficient than on Azeroth.  Which is why you need to get moving instead of standing around!

Her feet started moving again, picking their way over what she assumed counted as "the ground".  It was definitely dirt-like, and there were… grassish things… to either side, but it didn't smell quite right.  Not for nature, at least.  Most plants didn't smell so strongly of iron.  No, not iron.  She sniffed again, trying to place it.  Ah, right.  Blood.  Fresh blood, at that, before it dulled to a brown stain on the stones.  She wondered what this place would look like in sunlight.  Would its appearance match the sharp scents?  Could it even exist under such harsh light?

Despite carrying no torch, Ila was grateful for the sun's absence.  Her sensitive eyes could remain free of the goggles for a little longer, taking in all the subtle variations of shadow that were lost in the harshness of day.  She hadn't noticed how much she'd missed living with naked eyes until she'd started visiting with Granny Laine.  The Respite was a lot of things, but even Silverpine gloom didn't compare to the tranquil shade of their forest.  When she’d left the Ghostlands a few years ago, she’d felt like she had no home; now it seemed she’d found two.  Ilandreline smiled at that, letting her mind wander as much as her body.

Time definitely didn’t function normally in the space.  The pocket watch she’d made in her early days with the Fence told her it had been an hour, but her legs said it was much longer than that despite only feeling like fifteen minutes had passed.  She pushed on, digging into her snack bag to put some energy back into her muscles.  An hour later by internal reckoning -- and half that by the watch -- she stumbled out of sheer exhaustion and decided maybe it wasn’t time to get back up just yet.  Had it been two hours or twelve?  How far had she gone?  Why were her first days’ meals gone already and how was she still hungry?

Her eyelids were heavy, far heavier than they should’ve been.  “Fuck it, nap time.”  The words came out slurred.  It was a struggle just to move her pack beneath her head, to use it as a pillow.  Before she drifted off, Ila stuffed one of her grandmother’s cookies into her mouth, figuring there was no better time for some homemade coziness than immediately before passing out to sleep entirely unprotected in the nightmarish wilderness-phase running tangent to her plane of origin.  Aurelaine often joked she’d baked quite a few dishes with a lot of love in her younger days, where love was a euphemism for any number of exciting poisons.  As she swallowed the last of the cookie and drifted into the deeper darkness of sleep, Ilandreline was quite positive she could taste some of that same love now.

***

Waking up felt surprisingly pleasant and not at all terrifying.  Granny Laine was there, looking amused, and a vine had grown over her, but otherwise everything seemed… fine.  Good, even.  Ila stood and stretched, yawning, considering the last time sleep had left her so refreshed.  Never?  That sounded right.

"Couldn't help sneaking a treat before bed, eh?"  Her grandmother's voice was mock-chiding, the only good kind of chiding to receive from her.  "I should've known."

The vine tried to slither back around her leg, so she kicked it.  "You didn't give me cookies to not eat them.  It was lonely and I thought a taste of home would be nice.  Didn't expect it to, I dunno, summon you or whatever."

"Is that what you think they did?"

The young elf shrugged, gathering her gear and preparing to get back on the road.  "You're here, aren't you?  Shall we?"

Her grandmother made an indeterminate noise in her throat but began walking beside her nonetheless.  It was nice, really.  They'd gone for a few strolls back home, but there were always people around to cause trouble.  Not here.  It was just the two of them and an entire ecology built on what sure seemed to be carnivorous plants.

They walked in silence for some time, only pausing for Ilandreline to sip the water she'd brought, trying to get the leftover tastes from the night out of her mouth.  Everything, even the air, had an unusual taste; not of decay as she'd expected.  Instead it was something remembered from childhood, one of those memories that hid if you looked straight at it.  She'd have to sneak up on it by pretending to be interested in something else.

"So is this one of those things where we walk and you point out little things I need to know to survive or grow or whatever?"

She saw the cryptic smile from the corner of her eye.  "Something like that, perhaps.  Do you still need me holding your hand?"

"What?  No!  I just… not all of this comes easy, you know that.  I'm fine with making things up as I go, but that's really dangerous with… this stuff."  Ila gestured broadly, encompassing their entire surroundings.  "I like to have the numbers on my side.  There aren't any numbers here, no science.  It's all, I don't know, epistemological gradients or something."

Aurelaine laughed, a gravelly sound bordering on coughing.  A chortle!  That's what one sounds like.  "You're not wrong, child.  I'm only along to observe.  Maybe I can point something out that helps; maybe I even will.  This is your journey, though, not mine.  I've had my share already, paid the prices."

That made sense.  They continued, once more quiet, moving too fast and too slow at once, causing everything around them to be in perfect detail as it warped under the effects of tunnel vision.  The metallic taste remained in the back of her throat, tickling the corners of recollection.  She refused to focus on it, knowing that to do so would ensure she never remembered the answer.

Everything changed from one blink to the next.  The landscape was even darker now, near blinding to her gifted sight.  Her nostrils flared, the distinct aroma of blood foremost in the air, enough to make one hungry.  Or perhaps that was unrelated; journeys required food.  As she went for her trail mix, something caught her wrist, stopped it entirely.  Frowning, she glanced down to find a rubbery tendril wrapped around her arm.  "Fuck off," she said, getting no reaction.  The next best idea would be to cut it, but the only knife she had at the moment was not one she was willing to risk on a simple tentacle.  She looked over to her grandmother instead.  "Any chance you can do something about this?"

Grey eyebrows arched as eyes flicked from Ilandreline’s face to the appendage and back.  “Of course I can.”  She paused then deliberately added, “I won’t.”

Should’ve expected as much.  “This one of those ‘your journey, your problem’ moments?”  When Aurelaine nodded, she sighed.  Time to figure it out then.  There was a way; she was supposed to find it.  Trial by fire and all that.

“If I go solving your problems,” the predictable lecture began, “you’ll keep expecting me to give you the answers.  We both know that’s not how you learn.  You want to see the whole process, derived from first principles.  That way you can extend the logic as far as it goes, come up with your own hypotheses.  It also ensures you aren’t limited by the pace of your teacher, doesn’t it?”

The fraction of her consciousness paying attention laughed.  “Sure does.  Saves them the trouble of trying to answer all my ‘why’ questions, too, so it’s really a service when you think about it.  Don’t have to ask why if I’ve already done the math.”

“Yes, yes, I’m well aware that you’re infuriating, Lina, you don’t have to remind me.”  Dry humour ran in the family even if it skipped a generation.  “Getting back to the matter at hand, I’d simply remind that little pest about the order of things.  It’s a remnant, a cast-off, a weak afterthought of a failed god’s stray thoughts.  A pale imitation of the majesty to be found in the Great Dark, yearning to be more than it ever could.  I’d simply banish it and move on.”

That was one possibility then, banishment.  And how did banishing work?  Ila tried to dredge up the memories of mostly futile arcane schooling, seeking the bits that had remained.  Summoning circles… banishing circles?  An inversion of process, though the commanding nature remained constant.  How did that work for her, though?  She knew how to draw the runes, but had never been able to power them independently.  Blood would work, of course, had she prepared the circle already.  There had to be another way.

She rolled back through the words, sifting through them more by “feel” than analysis.  Hunches were the backbone of discovery; you felt something would be the answer, so you thought through the possibility.  What else had been hinted at?  Remnant.  Afterthought.  Failed.  Imitation.  Yearning.  Afterthought-Imitation-Yearning.  Was there something there?  She ran her tongue along the backs of her teeth, tasting iron and arsenic and something more as her mind kicked into gear.

The order of things.  These paths were bored through the near-realms of Azeroth by the so-called Old Gods, the entrapped dwellers-between-stars her grandmother held in such low esteem.  A trapped god was no god at all, for a proper god could not be limited.  That meant any of their leftovers were inherently inferior to the powers receiving her family’s offerings.  Not that creatures spawned from the lesser entities recognized Glimmerbow authority, but they should have.  There was that connection, like distant cousins where one is heir to a throne and the other is a cast-off from some hedge knight.

Oh, is that it?  Connectivity?  Like to like?  The tendril tightened, squeezing her bones.  It was starting to hurt.  If she waited too much longer, she might have to finish her trip with a shattered wrist.  Time to see if I learned anything.

Ilandreline focused the entirety of her consciousness on the wriggling mass, willing her vision to bore through the layers to see down to where it was no longer a physical appendage.  Deep down, it was a thoughtform, a psychic remnant, a projection, and she needed to see that.  How long it took to finally happen, she didn’t know.  She was drenched in sweat, and shaking from the effort, but she could see it clearly.

Banishment would require antithesis, but… that’s not what this is.  We’re the same, aren’t we, cousins from the same blood?  I can’t banish myself.  So what if…  She turned most of her attention inward, leaving only enough out to keep firm mental grasp on the essence of her assailant.  There was this dead-end creature left behind by one of the Four… and then there was her.  They were different, except where they weren’t.  Similarity was what she needed now.

She burrowed into herself, pushing through the layers of supposed sophistication.  On the lowest level she was not an elf, or even something shaped.  She was an extension of the universe’s primal forces, a conduit of the Eternal Dark.  At that point, she was what the tentacle thought itself to be.  Letting herself dwell entirely in that space, she lost her self and called out to this distant cousin.  See me, her mind cried, know me for what I am!

Their sameness was her focus, to establish communion.  Something resonated -- somehow -- drawing the psychic echo toward her.  She could feel its alienness, the oil-slick of fractal madness in its relict consciousness, just as surely as she knew her own essence was vastly more potent.  What others would call the taint of her heritage was a strength here; she formed a pseudopod of self, vibrating midnight purple, and whipped outward.  The sensation of startlement rippled across her mind, followed immediately by the primal panic of something being drawn to its inexorable demise.

The tendril was swallowed within her, its corrupt form dissolving within her purity of faith.  A priest of the Glimmerbows was an architect of dissolution, a bringer of endings to foster the chaos of the new.  What she hadn’t expected was the way it became a part of her.

Ila had never been at war in her own mind before.  This severed piece of a dead un-god struggled with all its might to avoid being broken down, flailing every which way.  For a moment she worried she might lose and end up a prisoner in her own flesh.  Then reason reasserted itself, and the flexibility of mind her grandmother had praised made clear its value.  She bent without breaking, absorbed the harshest assaults, returned to form without permanent deformation.  And then she swallowed it whole, allowing the thing to be torn apart and joined with her essence.

Shaking so hard she couldn’t have written a single legible letter, the elf opened her eyes.  Her grandmother faded from sight, though her approving gaze lingered.  The overlapping flavours of multiple poisons lingered, dancing over her taste buds and scratching at her throat.  She had no idea where she was, though she knew she had been walking all this time.  The ligature marks of the tentacle remained on her forearm, though, proof that something had happened, that she had conquered the smallest challenge.

Several deep breaths later, the shivering stopped.  Her whole body still tingled, the aftereffects of an adrenaline overdose, but that was manageable.  She took a swig of water to put moisture back into her body, then pulled the “map” from her inside jacket pocket.  It was more algorithmical than cartographical, but she read it as easily as Thalassian.  There was… a place to be, and she was much closer now than when she had started.

Through an act of will, Ilandreline set her legs in motion again.  There would be others, she knew.  This realm was made from the dreams of god-corpses, an afterimage of what they’d tried to make real.  But she had proof they paled before the strength Aurelaine had cultivated in her.  Let the dead gods try their worst.

Stretching out through the mental channels her hallucinations had opened, she tasted the planar gradient and turned toward her destination.  Plum was home and nightmare was the enemy, but blood and bone and leaf and light showed the way.  Not entirely certain the poisons had actually left her system, Ila climbed toward her destination unaware of the horrific grin on her face.

[edmund-valks]

Ilandreline - A Compound Beginning

(( Previously: The Call ))

"There's a hole in the world, dear girl, and not the good kind.  It leads to a place the living shouldn't be, and lets them get there in a way that shouldn't happen.  I hate to send you off, but you're the only one I trust to be adaptable.  Everyone else is too sure they understand everything to realize they're fools.

"The whole situation is a puzzle -- a deadly one.  Examine the pieces, Lina, find the edges.  See how they fit together, how this world connects.  Learn the rules that govern there, figure out how to break them.  Stay alive, too, and come back safely."

She'd never seen the older woman so uncertain.  It warmed and scared her at once.  "Is it really where the dead go?"  The specifics of her family's cosmology were still hazy, and Ilandreline didn't know which had been verified versus assumed.

"Only some of them, child.  Enough, I think, to make it difficult."

"Will I see family there?"  The possibility was very mixed given the number of relatives she'd had to avoid in the interests of personal safety.  Having to kill the already dead seemed… difficult, even -- or especially -- in the place where souls went.

"Not if they were sent off properly.  The Great Dark calls us home, not some bizarre 'afterlife'."

"But isn't there a cycle of things?"

"Of course there is, but it's not that literal.  We don't die, hang out a bit, and then come back.  We become a part of the Endless Night, our souls rejoined to the very fabric of all creation.  Perhaps pieces of us will once again be spun into a new person, but it will not be us."

Ilandreline considered for a moment, nodding only once she'd worked through the implications.  Their gods were creatures of ending and dissolution; it made sense that souls gifted to them would not be returned in a recognizable form.  She wondered what that might be like, to be unravelled to one's components.  It was recycling on a cosmic level.  Fascinating to think about, even if she had doubts about wanting it for herself.  "I hadn't thought about that.  Kinda neat.  There aren't any papers on that already are there?"

Aurelaine chortled.  "Not the kind you want.  You'll have to gather the data yourself, I think.  Good thing you'll be closer than any of us have ever been, eh?  Should be enough to keep you from getting bored doing the rest of what I've asked."

"Good point."  Someone else might've argued their commitment to family always came first, but she had no delusions on that front.  Sure, she didn't want to disappoint her grandmother, and wouldn't have wanted to even if that wasn't an often fatal experience, but she needed mental stimulation to do her best work.  Sounded like she'd have plenty.  "I guess the only thing left to ask is how I'm getting there.  I don't think anyone in Icecrown wants me there, and Orgrimmar's portal network isn't exactly open for tourists right now, so…"  Ila trailed off, waiting patiently for the answer she was sure was coming.

"Ah, that.  Yes.  Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to do part of that work yourself."  That was her self-amused smile showing now, not the happy one.  "I've acquired a diagram of the circle used to tap into the breach atop Icecrown, but we'll need to know how to adapt our own paths to reach there."

That perked her up immediately.  "Really?!  That's wonderful!  Where is it, I want to get started right away and-"

"Lina.  I know you're excited but I need you to stop for a moment.  Look at me."  Granny Laine's gaze was at its most piercing.  "This is extremely dangerous, all of it.  Start to finish, none of this can be taken lightly.  We can't afford to lose you.  I can't afford to lose you, either.  If something happens to you out there… you're on your own.  You'll be beyond my reach.  Understood?"

Solemnity draped itself over her enthusiasm, a damping force as efficient as a rubber grip on a wrench.  She'd be more on her own than ever, possibly with no way back until she could make one.  Ilandreline chewed her lip, running through the possibilities.  Finally she nodded.  "I understand.  And I won't let you down."

"I know, dear girl, but I need more than that.  I need you to promise you'll come back."

She grinned then, hiding the trepidation she felt behind the warm love she had for her grandmother.  "I will, Granny.  You have my word."

***

There were paths only a select few could walk, and of those even fewer did so safely.  One such path was that of the Eldest's Apprentice.  Another was found in certain shadows that were far deeper than they let on.

The latter was where Ilandreline's feet found themselves.  She stared up at the peculiar tree, an imbricated mass formed by many trunks twisted into one.  Oh.  That's a metaphor, isn't it?  The thought hadn't occurred to her before.  Not much had, in fairness; she'd grown up with the old tree as a fixture of life.  They'd all learned not to play near it if you ever wanted to come home again, but she hadn't connected that with why its fruit was reserved for very specific uses.  At its base, veiled behind its gnarled roots, was the beginning of the darkest road.

She'd traveled it before, of course.  There was no faster way to travel great distances unless you could make your own portals. Which she could have done if only she'd had the slightest sensitivity to the arcane.  Not that she was bitter or anything but…  Stop that, she chided herself.  Sure, a portal was beyond her to create, but she knew more about planar geometries than anyone else in her family, probably more than most mages in the world.  And after days of nonstop work, that knowledge had prepared her, brought her here.

Ilandreline couldn't stop herself from grinning at that.  She'd started with only three knowns and had made a map.  Where others would use portals already made, she had built her family's passage to the Shadowlands, a place none of them should ever end up.  She'd drawn up the requirements for an activating charm and with the Eldest's backing had received a ring that would do the job.  As far as she knew, no one had ever tried to map the void gradients of three coterminous planes, much less with the intent of using one to pass between the other two.  Maybe she'd publish it someday, after scrubbing the specifics out entirely.  The general solution wouldn't open her family to uncomfortable questions if she did it right.

"Here we go, I guess."  It was more to herself than the small audience gathered to see her off.  Still, she found herself looking back to take in what might be the last time she saw her home or family.  Granny Laine was there, of course, radiating confidence and authority.  Ilandreline's mother, Mellura'thel, stood to her left, coldly distant, possibly worried.  And there was Von on the other side, the only one smiling, though she seemed uncertain if that was the right expression for the moment.

"Don't worry," she told them, struggling to project her normal confidence that everything would turn out fine, "I'll get this sorted soon enough.  Just don't tear the gate down on me, okay?  I don't want to have to revise the whole trail while I'm walking it."

Only Aurelaine responded, striding forward with an energy at odds with her venerable appearance.  "Don't worry, child.  So long as Darkness remains, so will we."  She stopped very close to Ila, straightening up with visible effort to look her in the eye.

"I can see you're beginning to understand now," she spoke softly, barely loud enough for her granddaughter to hear.  "You thought you'd started on your way already, but now you see this is it.  You already know I trust you'll do what needs doing, just as you know I've demanded your safe return.  But now I need to say just one more thing."

Aurelaine, Speaker of the Great Dark, architect of their family's faith and power, drew a small pouch from within her robes, pressing it into Ilandreline's hand.  "I made these for you.  Think of me when you eat them, and remember your dear old granny loves and misses you.  You've always been my favourite, little Lina.  Be safe."

The sudden sting of tears took her by surprise.  She hurriedly stuff the bag of cookies into a pocket, blinking the wetness away before someone else might see.  "I will.  And I promise to make you proud.  I'll-"

"That's enough, dear.  You don't need to say anymore, and it'll just make it harder if you do."  Her wrinkles and creases deepened until she was smiling.  "Now stop dilly-dallying and get on your way.  The rest of us have work to get back to."

Off-balance, Ilandreline failed to say anything at all.  She did manage to return the wink, though.  With a nod, the youngest of the assembled Glimmerbows turned away, putting one foot in front of the other until the darkness beneath the greatest voidplum tree swallowed her entirely.