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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Samloyal23" data-source="post: 6067189" data-attributes="member: 21432">Queen Aneh-tet was old. She saw the signs of the decades on the throne of the City-State of Shosnar engraved in her face. Her hair had turned from thick and black and soft to weathered and grey.  Her joints were stiff; when the weather turned cold she needed a cane to walk. Her flesh sagged and her eyes were weak. Her beauty had faded but her vanity had not. She had been beautiful in her youth. So beautiful was she in her youth that men had killed each other for her attention. Men courted her power now, not her beauty. They still committed murders and other foul deeds for her attention, but it was not the same. Magical illusions could make her appear lovely, but could not make her feel beautiful. She knew something had to be done and she would spill as much blood as needed to regain her youth and beauty.Delving into dark grimoires of lost Thosia, the land of her ancestors that was now sunken beneath the sea, she at long last found what she needed. Studying the ancient text that she had spent so many years looking for, she knew she had the answer. After several hours of preparation, she knew what had to be done. Aneh-tet summoned the youngest of her ladies in waiting, the lovely daughter of a noble warrior in her court. “Come, my darling girl, come to your queen…” Aneh-tet cooed to the innocent girl. “How old are you now, my dear?” the queen asked. The young girl was too shy to look the queen in the eye and said just loud enough to be heard “I have but 13 summers, My Queen…” The queen’s eyes lit up then narrowed to dark slits. “Perfect…” she said coldly, and then grabbed the young girl by the throat. The dark invocation Aneh-tet had discovered went to work, as she exhaled swirls of smoke and dark flame into the mouth of the terrified servant girl. The entire court watched in terror as the young lady in waiting grew haggard and wrinkled, her hair went from silky black to grizzled grey, and her bones and muscles groaned under a sudden and onerous load of time. Queen Aneh-tet felt the girl’s youth and vitality rush into her body in waves as she verily inhaled the fullness of youth out of the girl’s trembling body. Her skin grew firm, her wrinkles vanished, her hair regained it lustre, and her joints stopped aching. She looked at herself in a mirror and saw the young girl she had been as a teenager. She let go of the girl and laughed, a sound that was beautiful to the ear but chilling to the soul. The girl’s father flew into a rage and charged at the queen, but a long chain with a cruel barb shot from Aneh-tet’s hand and pierced the noble’s heart. She dragged him to her by the chain as his blood poured out of his body and kissed sweetly him as he died. She laughed as the barbed chain retracted back into her hand.The once young lady in waiting was shaking in terror and weeping for her dead father. Something dark grew inside her, her soul was tainted now. Slowly she calmed herself as the reality of her situation became clear to her. She wiped her eyes, stood up as straight as she could with her aching joints, and glared at Queen Aneh-tet, “I live to serve you, My Queen.” But inside her heart beat a hatred she had never known possible. Only the thought of revenge would warm her cold heart now…</blockquote>

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